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'ANNALS 



FAMILY EECOEDS 



WINCHESTEK, CONK, 



Exercises of the Centennial Celebration, 

On the 16th and 17th Days of August, 

1871. 



BY 

JOHN BOYD 






HARTFORD: 

PRESS OF CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD. 

1873. 



^v \q V 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF THE 

PIONEER SETTLERS AND EARLY RESIDENTS 

OF WINCHESTER, 

TO THEIR WIDELY-SCATTERED DESCENDANTS, 

AND 

TO THE NATIVE AND ADOPTED CITIZENS 

OP THE TOWN, 

^his r 2Jliemovial 

IS REVERENTLY AND MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



o 



LIST OF PORTRAITS. 



JOHN BOYD, 

JONATHAN COE, 

WILLIAM G. COE, " 

ABEL McEWEN, 

LUMAN HUBBELL, " 

FREDERICK MARSH, 

REUBEN COOK, " 

SOLOMON ROCKWELL, 

ALPHA ROCKWELL, " 

ELLIOT BEARD SLEY, 

JAMES BEACH, " 

E. STERLING WOODFORD, 

LUCIUS CLARKE, " 

SETH L. WILDER, 

SAMUEL W. COE, " 

WILLIAM H. PHELPS, 

CHARLES E. PALMER, " 

JOHN B. WELCH, 

JAMES R. BALDWIN, 



Facing Title Page. 

Facing Page 53 

55 



58 
215 
238 
303 
363 
364 
368 
386 
390 
410 
414 
425 
437 
470 
473 
477 



PREFACE. 



As early as 1856, the compiler of these Annals conceived the plan of 
collecting materials for a history of his native town, and its early settlers. 
His life-long residence, reaching back to 1799, and the custody of its re- 
cords during no inconsiderable portion of the last fifty years, made him 
more familiar than most living men, with its documentary history and its 
traditions. Frequent calls by descendants of Old Winchester families, and 
by genealogists for information derivable from the town records, im- 
pressed him with the belief that a compilation of historical events and 
family records, however imperfect, would be received with favor alike by 
citizens of the town and descendants of emigrating families. 

It soon became apparent that the settlement and growth of one of the 
most recent of the original towns of the State, was attended with no thril- 
ling incidents or romantic tales, with which to embellish its transition from 
barbarism to civilization. If its territory had ever been possessed by an 
aboriginal i*ace, that race had long ago disappeared, leaving no trace be- 
hind. The dispirited remnants of the once warlike tribes of the Narra- 
ganset region, had only roamed through its tangled foi'ests, and made 
temporary halts along the shores of its lakes and the banks of its streams. 
They claimed no right of domain, and contested no settler's possession of 
its soil. No fort nor block-house was ever needed for protection or de- 
fence of its pioneer settlers ; and no hostile armament ever approached 
its borders. 

Lacking historical material of this nature, in its oiugin, and destitute 
of sensational events in its slow and prosaic growth, the idea of a reada- 
ble town history seemed preposterous. And yet there are unrecorded in- 
cidents and traditions in the growth of every community, which, however 
uninteresting to the outside world, may deeply interest residents and the 
descendants of residents, of that community. There are traits of char- 
acter, and memories of worth or unworthiness, customs, and habits of 
thought and action, that should not be lost to posterity by want of brief 
record. There is also a growing desire among the descendants of New 
England families, to trace their ancestry and family connections ; not so 
much in search of an illustrious origin, as with the desire to establish a 
connection with progenitors and kindred of solid worth. 



Viii ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

With the purpose of aiding in these researches, the following circular 
letter was printed, and largely distributed among the descendants of early 
settlers and residents of the town : 

CIRCULAR. 
Dear Sir: — 

I am making a compilation from the Winchester Records, of all the facts ascertain- 
able in reference to the settlers and inhabitants of the town prior to 1800 ; — and am 
desirous of incorporating therein such other facts as may be furnished by the descend- 
ants of old Winchester families, in reference to their origin and expansion. Such a 
compilation will have a value proportioned to the accuracy and extent of the informa- 
tion it will afford to future inquirers in reference to their family history ; — and this 
must mainly depend on the prompt and liberal aid of those taking an interest in the 
perpetuation of family history. 

The items desired are, the births, marriages, and deaths, of all members of inhabit- 
ant families — the dates of their settlement in, and their departure from the town — their 
prior and subsequent residence — the names, residences, and other particulars before 
enumerated, of their ancestors as far back as can be ascertained — and the names of all 
descendants; — also the offices and appointments in church and state, and the profes- 
sions or occupations which any of them held or followed, together with peculiarities 
of character or history. 

Family Bibles should be made the basis of reports, and such other facts added there- 
to, as arc attainable. Communications, while they arc comprehensive, should be brief 
and well digested — and must be promptly furnished to be available. 

As the labors of the compiler will be arduous, and without remuneration, he feels 
assured that no son or grandson of oid Winchester will withhold the aid he can fur- 
nish towards perfecting the work proposed. 

Yours truly, 

John Boyd. 

West Winsteb, Ct., June 12, 1857. 

The responses to this call were so few, and the materials furnished so 
scant, as to discourage any attempt in the way of perfected genealogies. 
Nevertheless, a systematic digest of the materials of famry history fur- 
nished by the public records, supplemented by reliable additions from other 
sources, seemed to promise essential aid to genealogists, and to the widely 
scattered descendants of Winchester families. By adding personal no- 
tices of every known early settler and resident of the town, and incidents 
of town history, in the form of Annals, it was hoped that a readable book 
could be compiled, which would prove interesting and instructive to citi- 
zens of the town and their widely scattered descendants. 

The plan adopted was, to trace out the land title of the township, to 
note the action of the proprietary body, the subdivision of the lands into 
divisions, tiers, and lots, and the assignment of these lots to individual 
proprietors or purchasers. The carrying out of this plan required a dili- 
gent search of the land records and assessment lists, to ascertain the or- 
der and dates of immigration, the location of immigrants, by means of 
descriptions ami references in recorded deeds, and by personal inquiries 
of cotemporaries and descendants, for such items of family history as the 
records do not furnish. 



PREFACE. i x 

With these data obtained, and with the aid of town, society, and church 
records, the compiler entered on his task. How successfully he has ac- 
complished it, amid the constant interruption of official duties, it is the 
province of others to judge ; while it is his right to assume that few crit- 
ics will discover more of its demerits than he is painfully conscious of. 

In his treatment of the work his endeavor has been to make it reada- 
ble and instructive to residents and the descendants of residents of the 
town, by embodying with statistical and historic facts, incidents and illus- 
trations unappreciable by the outside world. If in this he has assimilated 
to the illustrious Boswell, the work will probably be not the less accepta- 
ble to the readers for whom it is specially designed. The home reader 
will hardly ohject to being conducted slowly along the path of the first 
settlers, as one of their number, learning about the divisions of the town- 
ship domain into tiers and lots and their landmarks; silting at the primi- 
tive fireside of Caleb Beach ; partaking of Joel's collation of bear's meat 
or venison, supplemented by a wooden bowl of toast and cider; calling 
of an evening at landlord Mott's hostelry and hearing the news of 
the outer world, and perchance witnessing the descent down the chimney 
of his stalwart boys ; going to meeting at the old Sab-a-day house, 
or, later, at the new meeting-house, and joining in the prayers and praises 
of the assembled worshipers ; discussing at the store or tavern the merits 
or demerits of the half-way covenant and the impending Revolutionary 
cri.-is ; attending the trainings, school exhibitions, and public whippings 
at the post ; watching the growth of the settlement, and becoming ac- 
quainted with each new settler. 

The experiences of a town in small things as well as in large, make up 
its history. Its legendary anecdotes, apocryphal though they may be, re- 
lieve the dullness of description or narrative, and illustrate manners and 
customs. Their absolute truth or falsity should not trouble the con- 
science of the sober-sided, unimaginative reader, who eschews all levity 
and humor as of the evil one. All that is demanded of such an one is, to 
receive them as traditions which, in the nature of things, cannot be authen- 
ticated or belied. 

For assistance and encouragement in prosecuting this work, a grateful 
acknowledgment is due to D. Williams Patterson, Esq., late of Winsted 
and now of Newark Valley, N. Y., for essential aid in collecting and arrang- 
ing the family records, for persistent urgency in stimulating the jaded, 
not to say indolent compiler, to perseverance in prosecuting his task. 

To Deacon Ira Hills, of Vernon, N. Y., the olde.-t living native of the 

town, and the most filial of her sons, and to Mrs. Nellie M. Swift, of 

Cohhester, Conn., both descendants of the early settlers of the town, and 

both residents elsewhere during most of their lives, we are indebted for 

la 



x ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

many interesting reminiscences of men and customs of the past. We 
have copied liberally from the sprightly sketches of the latter, and from 
the former have obtained valuable material. We are also indebted to the 
venerable Father Marsh for extracts from his manuscript historical ser- 
mon, deposited in the archives of the Connecticut Historical Society. 
With these aged worthies it is fitting to associate Deacon Abel S. Wet- 
more, of the active generation now on the stage, as versed with traditional 
lore beyond any other living native of the town. 

Credit is also due to Dr. Henry H. Drake, Recording Secretary of the 
Centennial Association, for securing and arranging accurate reports of 
the centennial exercises herein published, and for his efficient services in 
obtaining a list of subscribers exceeding in number the most sanguine an- 
ticipations of the compiler; also to C. A. Alvord, a native, and S. A. 
Hubbard, a former resident of the town, both now of Hartford, and to 
George M. Carrington, of Winsted, for the kind interest they have taken 
in the work, and the assistance they have rendered in its preparation for 
the press. 

Before this work was projected, most of the generation connecting the 
present with the primitive stock had passed away. Among those then 
living and now departed, a tribute of grateful remembrance is due to Rev- 
Abel McEwen, D. D., of New London, whose analysis of character and 
fund of anecdote were unrivaled. A series of sketches of early Win- 
chester men was commenced by him, but soon discontinued by reason of 
infirmities of age, of which we have availed ourselves. To the late Dr. 
Truman S. Wetmore, the compiler is also specially obliged for valuable 
information obtainable from no other living source. Also to the family of 
the late Deacon Lewis M. Norton, for free access to his manuscript vol- 
umes of Goshen genealogies, — a work of great interest and value, which 
should be made available to the public, in printed form. 

The. compiler originally contemplated publishing these Annals as early 
as 1862, but on ascertaining the expenses of publication and the probable 
patronage the work would receive, it appeared very doubtful whether the 
actual pecuniary outlay would be refunded, and therefore the project was 
abandoned. 

The occurrence of the town centennial in July, 1871, created a new 
interest in the history of the town. A publication of the centennial exer- 
cises was demanded, of which the Historical Address formed a part. This 
was an epitome of this work; too long to be fully read to a public audi- 
ence, and yet too brief to prove a satisfactory exposition of the town his- 
tory. Under these circumstances the compiler decided to bring his whole 
work before the public, and by an arrangement with the town, engaged to 
publish in connection with it the other centennial exercise-. 



PREFACE. xl 

The engraved portraits embellishing this volume are, with two excep- 
tions, of deceased natives or citizens of the town ; and all of them were 
provided at the expense of friends of the parties. Others would have 
been in like manner provided, had there existed satisfactory portraits from 
which to engrave them. 

It is hardly an excusable weakness in a writer to deprecate criticism o^ 
a production which he ha^ deliberately brought before the public, but it is 
hoped that the limited public for whose perusal the work was designed, 
and to whom it is dedicated, will consider that it was compiled in snatches 
of time amid other occupations, then laid aside for several years, and on 
finally taking it up for immediate publication, finding much to add, more 
to suppress, and the whole to correct and condense, and at an age when 
mental and bodily vigor is essentially impaired, will excuse its defects and 
the seeming unreasonable delay in carrying it through the press ; and will 
find in its pages items of town and family history, and of tradition, which 
would have been lost had they waited for a more able chronicler to era- 
body them. 



CHAPTER I . 



PRELIMINARY HISTORY— LAND TITLE. 



The oldest conveyance of land recorded in Winchester bears date 
November 28, 1729, by which John Kilbourn, of Hartford, conveys to 
Jonathan and David Hills, of Hartford, "all (his) right, title, share, and 
interest in and to a, large Trad of Land, commonly known as the Western 
Lands, belonging to (lie Towns of Hartford and Windsor, as it abuts 
on the Towns of Woodbury and Litchfield, west on the Colony Land, 
north on the Colony line, and cast on Farmington and Shnsbury, or 
however butted and bounded." 

This title was derived from a hasty and ill-advised grant of the General 
Court, made in January, 1686, to the towns of Hartford and Windsor, in 
anticipation of the annulling of the colonial charter, and the sequestration 
by Sir Edmund Andross of the unoccupied lands of the colony. Besides 
several minor tracts- undisposed of in Hartford and New Haven counties, 
the colony owned tin- whole territory of Litchfield county lying north of 
New Milford and Woodbury. 

On notice of the arrival of Andross at Boston, with authority from the 
crown to revoke the colonial charter, and to assume the government of 
the colony, the grant referred to was made by the panic-stricken General 
Court. The series of votes, of which this grant was one, bore a resem- 
blance to an assignment in bankruptcy, and had some badges which, in 
strict legal construction, might have been esteemed fraudulent had the 
usurpation of Andross been sustained. 

The first vote constituted Major John Talcott and Ensign Nath. 
Standley trustees of all the bills secured to, and all claims due the colony, 
to be improved by them for paying the colonial debts, and to pay over 
the surplus, if any, to the several counties, for the encouragement of 
Grammar Schools. Another vote granted to Wethersfield, Middletown, 
and Farmington, all the vacant lands between Wallingford bounds and 
the bounds of those towns ; another vote granted to the Town of Kenil- 
worth, " all those lands north of their bounds and Guilford, and west 
of Haddam" ; and by another vote, granted to Hartford and Windsor, 
" those lands on the north of Woodbury and Matatock, and on the west 
of Farmington and Simsbury, to the Massachusetts line north, and to 
2 



10 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

run west to Housatunnuck River (provided it be not, or part of it, for- 
merly granted to any particular persons) to make a plantation or villages 
thereon." 

Andross, after repeated but fruitless efforts to induce the General Court 
to make a voluntary surrender of the charter, came to Hartford in 
October, 1687, dissolved the charter government, and assumed supreme 
control. The charter, however, was never surrendered to him, nor was 
it ever set aside by the English Courts, on the writ of quo warranto then 
pending. His usurped goverument, after a period of about sixteen months, 
came to an end on news of the deposition of James II., and the accession 
of William and Mary to the British throne. 

On the flight of Andross early in 1689, the charter government was 
resumed, and the old magistrates, and civil and military officers, were 
reinstated, until a new election under the charter could be held. The land 
grants referred to had not been perfected by the issue of charters, which 
by law were indispensable to their validity, nor was any action taken in 
reference to them for nearly twenty years. It is probable that the General 
Court, while composed mainly of those who voted the grant, were 
unwilling, by a revocation, to incur the imputation of having made a 
fictitious disposal of the lands, and that the grantees, while the well-known 
intent of the grants was fresh in their remembrance, were slow to repu- 
diate the implied trust by any overt acts of ownership. 

By the town records of Hartford it appears that nearly twenty-two 
years after the grant, and after most of those then on the stage had 
passed away, it was voted in town meeting, " that whereas, a grant was 
made to the plantations of Hartford and Windsor, on the 26th of January, 
1686, of those lands on the north of Woodbury and Matatuck, west of 
Symsbury and Farmington, to the Massachussetts Line North, and to 
run west to Housatonuck or Stratford River ; that two or three persons 
be appointed to join with two or more from Windsor, to survey, or view, 
the said tract of land, and make return of the quantity and quality thereof, 
and to bring in a map of the same." In January, 1708, another com- 
mittee was appointed by Hartford to compound with claimants of any 
part of the lands, to settle the boundaries, and, if need be, to sue, defend, 
eject, and recover, in course of law, all disputants of their title or trespassers 
on their lands. In 1710, a committee was raised to devise measures to 
secure the propriety of the lands, and to move the assembly " to grant 
them such deed in writing, or other thing" as might be deemed necessary. 

Other votes, of a similar nature, were passed from time to time, with a 
view to establish a possessory right, and in 1715 it was decided to lay out 
one or two townships, probably with a view to fortify their right of 
ownership by compliance with the only expressed condition of the original 
grant. Pursuant to this policy, the township of Litchfield — originally 



PRELIMINARY HISTORY. H 

named New Bantam — was surveyed and] laid out about 1717; and it 
being found that parties in Farmington had secured Indian titles to por- 
tions of this territory, they were compromised with, by allotting to them 
one-sixth part of the township, in consideration of their release of all 
claim to any other portion of the granted territory, and of procuring a 
confirmation to Hartford and Windsor of all the lands in the township 
claimed by Farmington Indians. 

Litchtield having been surveyed and its lands disposed of to settlers 
who had entered on the same, the location and survey of a new township, 
north of Litchfield, was resolved on, and a committee appointed for that 
purpose. This committee reported their laying out of a township of about 
the dimensions of Litchfield, embracing a gore from the east side of Corn- 
wall, the whole of Goshen, the west half of Torrington, and the south- 
west corner of Winchester. The report was accepted in 172o, and a 
committee was appointed to dispose of the lands, admit settlers, and con- 
vey the lands to purchasers. 

At this stage of the proceedings, the General Assembly seems for the 
first time to have interposed to cheek the fillibustering operations of these 
powerful and arrogant towns ; and the state of things imperiously demanded 
prompt and energetic action. Not Hartford and Windsor alone were 
interested in establishing the defective grant of 1G86, but also the towns 
of Wethersfield, Middletown, and Killingworth — the grantees of smaller 
tracts. Farmington had become specially interested by its compact secur- 
ing to it a sixth part of the township of Litchfield. Prominent men in 
other towns had purchased fractional shares of the territory from Hartford 
and Windsor proprietors, and were thereby brought into the combination, 
which became so strong that civil process against the trespassers could not 
be executed in Hartford county, which then comprehended the disputed 
territory. In this emergency, the Assembly, at the Spring session of 
1723, directed the King's Attorney for New Haven county to prosecute 
the trespassers in the name of the Governor and Company. John Sey- 
mour, Samuel Catlin, William Baker, Thomas Moore, and Job Ellsworth, 
of the committee appointed by Hartford and Windsor to dispose of the 
allotments in the Goshen township, appear to have been the first parties 
prosecuted and arrested.* 



* Doctor Trumbull, in his History <>/ Connecticut, assigns an earlier period for the 
arrest and imprisonment of trespassers on the western lands, and ascribes to the men 
of Hartford and Windsor the famous uprising and jail-delivery in 1722, with the pur- 
pose of rescuing those trespassers. Recent, investigations of the Colonial and Court 
Records of that period, by Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull, go to show that this high- 
handed outrage was perpetrated by men of Windham and Tolland counties, in no way 
concerned in the Hartford and Windsor controversy, but neighbors and friends of 
Captain Jeremiah Fitch, a popular and influential man in eastern Connecticut, who, 
after a protracted suit at law in defence of a land title, and, as he and his neighbors 



12 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

The apprehension of a vigorous prosecution of these and other offenders, 
may have induced the following whimpering vote, passed in Hartford 
town meeting, in April, 1773: 

" Voted, That Joseph Talcott, Esq., Lieut. Thomas Seymour, and James 
Ensign be a committee, in conjunction with a committee of Windsor, to 
represent to the General Assembly, in May next, the true state of our 
western lands by grant and purchase, and pray their favorable construc- 
tion of our right thereto, and pray them for a further confirmation thereof 
by patent, or otherwise enquire of them their further intentions with us, 
as their children, who freely pay all obedience to them as our father." 
This language indicates a change of tone and policy. The asking of a 
confirmation of title shows a growing doubt of the validity of their action 
in appropriating Litchfield and attempting further appropriations of terri- 
tory. Another vote of Hartford, October 7th, 1723, reciting the original 
grant, and the great expenses and charges of the towns in buying out the 
native claimants, and assigning as the reason why the Assembly refused 
their grant, that many members of the Assembly apprehended the quan- 
tity of land embraced in their grant of 1G86 was far greater than was 
understood or intended at the time ; therefore they appointed a committee 
to act with a Windsor committee in applying to the coming October 
session of Assembly "for a confirmation of said lands ; or, if the General 
Assembly shall remain uivwilling, for the reasons aforesaid, to grant a 
patent of the whole of said lands, the said agents are empowered to con- 
cert with the Assembly for obtaining a patent for a part of said lands, 
releasing the rest as said agents shall judge most conducive to the benefit 
of said towns and the quiet settlement of said lands." The vote then 
goes on to limit the agents to a proposed division, by a compromise line 
from the northwest corner of Litchfield, north, to the Massachusetts 
line, the eastern division to be confirmed to Hartford and Windsor, and 
the western to be relinquished to the colony. This division would have 



conceived, a wrongful judgment rendered against him, was committed to Hartford 
jail, on an execution for costs. His neighbors, against some of whom similar actions 
were pending or threatened, — there 1 icing scarcely a farm in that region over which 
there were not two or three conflicting titles, — were indignant at his committal, and 
determined to liberate him. On the 22d of October, 1722, these neighbors and some 
East Windsor men — about fifty in all — in open day crossed the Hartford ferry, marched 
up to the jail, and demanded the release of Captain Fitch. The jailor refusing, a 
battering-ram was improvised out of a timber near at hand, the dour was broken in, 
and Cap'. Fitch and the other prisoners were set. free. The party then retreated to 
the ferry, which they seized, in spite of the sheriff's posse hastily assembled, and made 
good their retreat without further interruption. Capt. Fitch was afterwards tried as a 
participator in the riot, and acquitted of any knowledge, act, or part in the matter. 
He subsequently obtained a reversal of the judgment against him, the costs of which 
were the l>asis of his arrest and imprisonment. 



LAND TITLE. 13 

given to the towns more than three-fourths of the territory, and to the 
colony less than one-fourth. 

Though not acceeded to, and probably not expected to be, the propo- 
sition became a basis of negotiation. 

At the October Session, in 1724, the Assembly appointed a committee 
to examine the claims of the towns, to receive propositions, and to report. 
"The Committee," in the words of Dr. Trumbull, "found it an affair of 
great labor and difficulty to examine the claims, and obtain such conces- 
sions and propositions as they judged reasonable, or as the Assembly 
would accept. After laboring in the business nearly two years they 
made their report. The Legislature, wishing to preserve the peace of 
the colony, and to settle the lands as expeditiously as might be, on the 
report of their committee resolved, (May Session, 172G), "that the 
lands in controversy should be divided between the colony and the towns 
— that the colony should have the western, and Hartford and Windsor 
the eastern division. " 

The line of division coincided with the dividing line between Cole- 
brook, Winchester, and Torrington, on the east, and Goshen and Norfolk 
on the west. 

The township of Litchfield was conceded to the two towns, and their 
grants to New Milford and to Benjamin Fairweather were confirmed. 
The survey of the new township north of Litchfield was abandoned, and 
the area, absorbed in other townships afterward laid out. 

The territory conceded to Hartford and Windsor embraces the towns 
of Colebrook, Hartland, Winchester, Barkhamsted, Torrington, New 
Hartford, and Harwinton, making an area of 291,806 acres, to which is 
to be added the township of Litchfield, with an area of not. less than 
35,000 acres. 

The territory reserved to the colony embraced the towns of Canaan, 
Norfolk, Cornwall, Goshen, Warren, and about two-thirds of Kent, 
making not far from 120,000 acres. 

To the excess of area conceded to the two towns is to be added the 
advantage of location in considering the concession made to them by the 
Assembly, in order to quiet their tumultuous spirit, and secure a speedy 
settlement of the only remaining unoccupied territory of the Colony. 
Yet, the concession of this splendid domain was so unsatisfactory to the 
two towns that the ratification of the compact was not. perfected until 
August 30, 1729, when a patent, of one moiety of the 145,303 acres was 
duly issued to Hartford, and of the other moiety to Windsor. 

The lands being surveyed and divided into townships, Hartford and 
Windsor proceeded to a dissolution of partnership by deeds of partition 
dated February 11, 1732, by which the inhabitants of Hartford became 
the sole owners of Hartland, Winchester, New Hartford, and the eastern 



14 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

half of Harwinton, and the inhabitants of Windsor of Colebrook, Bark- 
hamsted, Torrington, and the western half of Harwinton. A law of the 
Assembly was enacted, providing for a subdivision by each of the towns 
among its taxable inhabitants, of their individual rights, by assigning to 
each his whole interest in one or other of the townships. The law also 
provided that the land-owners of each township should have a corporate 
existence as "proprietors" of the respective towns, with powers to survey 
and allot to each individual his pro rata share, according to the lists of 
1720, of the land in the township to which he was assigned. 

Under this enactment the seven proprietary townships were so organ- 
ized as to constitute each tax-payer of Hartford and Windsor on their 
lists of 1720, or their heirs or assigns, a proprietor of an undivided share, 
in proportion to his list in some one of the townships ; and the quantity of 
land to which each was entitled on subdivision was at the rate of more 
than three acres to the pound of his list. 



CHAPTER II. 



PROPRIETOR* OF WINCHESTER.' 



In the preceding chapter we have briefly detailed the events which 
resulted in settling the title of the western lands and vesting the township 
of Winchester in a proprietary body. It would seem as it', on this con- 
summation, after a controversy of more than forty years, our proprietors 
would at once have organized and opened their lands for s;d<- or settle- 
ment; but it appears they were in no haste to do so. In 1744, May 14, 
eight years after Hartford and Windsor had made a division of their ill- 
gotten territory, the proprietors of Winchester were called together, and 
were organized by choosing William Pitkin as moderator, and Thomas 
Seymour as clerk and register of deeds. 

The names of individual proprietors, and the amounts set to them, was 
made out in these words : 

Here follows a list of the names of the original proprietors of the township of 
Winchester, in the county of Hartford, with the severall sums annexed to their names 
by which the respective rights and shares of sd. proprietors of the township of 
Winchester afores'd are to be apportioned and holden or divided to and amongst them, 
their heirs and assigns, according as the same is sett and apportioned in the deed of 
partition made of that part of those lands called the Western Lands, which was sett out 
to and among the inhabitants of Hartford, viz.: 

£. s. d. G. s. d. 

Wm. Pitkin, Esq., Heirs, 251 : 0:0 Joseph Keeney, 44 : 0:0 

Mr. Richard Lord's Heirs, 161: 0:0 John Porter, 33: 0:0 

Rev. Mr. Thos. Buckingham,. 100 : 0:0 William Cole, 52 : 0:0 

Wm. Whiting, Jun., 21: 0:0 Capt. Thos. Seymour, 206: 0:0 

Peter Pratt, 41: 0:0 Joseph Wells' Heirs, 20:10:0 

Nath'l Jones, 39:10:0 Sam'l Church's Heirs, 31: 0:0 

Dan'l Smith, 23 : 0:0 Stephen Andruss, 35 : 0:0 

Sam'l Burnham, 24 : 0:0 Henry & John Arnold, 93 : 0:0 

Thos. Hopkins, 97 : 0:0 Wilterton Merrill, 134 : 0:0 

Jacob Merrill's Heirs, 64: 0:0 Thos. Burr, 91: 0:0 

Aaron Cook's Heirs 171: 0:0 Col. Wm. Whiting. 35: 0:0 

John Pratt, Jun., 55 : 10 : Uapt. Jos. Wadsworth, 44 : 10 : 

John Ensign, 38:10:0 Mr. John Whiting, 125: 0:0 

Wm. Roberts, Jun., Heirs,. . . 29 : : John Pellett, 21 : 0:0 

Joseph Easton, 40:10:0 Wm. Williams, 105 : 10 : o 

Tim. Phelps' Heirs, 71: 0:0 John Cole, 40 : 0:0 



16 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



£. s. d. 

Thos. Wells, ! 79 : 10 : 

Jona. Barrett, 49 : 0:0 

Thos. Pellett, 46 : 0:0 

Jos. Keeney, Jun., 49 : 0:0 

Isaac Kellogg 48: 0:0 

Richard Olmsted, 73 : 0:0 

John Shepard, 64 : 10 : 

Jona. Olcott, 41: 0:0 

Ensign Nath'l Goodwin, 124 : 10 :0 

James Ensign, 121 : 10 : 

Edw'd Dodd's Heirs, 22 : 0:0 

Thos. Judd's Heirs, 61:10:0 

Eben'r Webster, 38 : 10 : 

Thos. Day's Heirs, 38 : 0:0 

Jas. Bidwcll's Heirs, IS: 0:0 

John Skinner, 138 : 0:0 

Josep Root, 1: 0:0 

Thos. Meekin's Heirs,... 1 24: 0:0 

Jos. Sedgwick 28: 0:0 

Jona. Burnliam, 21 : 0:0 

Richard Goodman, 77: 0:0 

Caleb Watson, 21 : 0:0 

Lem'l Dealing's Heirs, 15 : 0:0 

Obadiah Spencer, 161 : 0:0 

Thos. Dickinson's Heirs, 51 : : 

Aaron Cook's Heirs, , 51:10:0 

Johu Kellogg's 1 Ieirs 54 : 0:0 

Thos. Burnham, Jr., Heirs,... 29: 0:0 

James Porter 27 : 0:0 

Richard Gilman, 58 : 0:0 

Caleb Benton 41 : 10 : 

John Camp's Heirs, 2: 0:0 

Rev. Mr. Benj. Colton, 100 : 0:0 

Thos. Burr, Jun., 51 : 10 : 

Joseph Gilbert, 53 : 0:0 

Sam'l Hubbard, 25 : 0:0 

Thos. Hosmcr, 193: 0:0 

Richard Burnham, Jr., 56 : 0:0 



Thos. Whaples, 

Ephraim Tucker, 

John Hazletine, 

1 Richard Seymour, 

William Day,..,. ::. 

John Goodwin, 

John Williams' Heirs, 

William Pratt, 

Jacob Webster's Heirs, 

Mr. John Haynes' Heirs, 

John Benjamin, Jun., 

Thos. Burnham's Heirs, 

Jona. Bull, 

Jona. Ashley, 

John Pantry, 

Caleb B. & Thos. Bunce's H'rs, 

Joseph Cook, 

David Forbes, 

.lames Williams, Jun., 

John Burnham, Jr., 

■S am'l Burr, 

Jos. Farnsworth, 

John Butler, 

Johu Easton's Heirs, 

Charles Kelsey, 

Samuel Spencer, 

Joseph Butler, 

John Abby 

Phebee Russell, 

Ozias Goodwin, 

Ichabod Wadsworth, 

Tim. Porter, 

John Kilbom, 

James Poisson, 

Jonathan Taylor, 

Thos. Day, Jr., Heirs, 



£. s. d. 
26 : 10 : 
32 : 0:0 
21 : 0:0 
61 *: 10 : 
23 : 0:0 
52 : 10:0 
46 : 0:0 
31 : 0:0 
38 : 0:0 
121 : 0:0 
18 : 0:0 

51 : 0:0 

44 : 10 : 

52 : 0:0 
109: 0:0 
115: 0:0 

77 : 0:0 
75 : 0:0 
43 : 0:0 
30 : 0:0 

45 : 10:0 
25 : 0:0 
29 : 0:0 
90 : 0:0 
38: 0:0 
60 : 10 :0 
66 : 10:0 

0:0 
0:0 
0:0 
10:0 
52 : 0:0 
51 : 0:0 
18: 0:0 
27 : 10 :0 
18: 0:0 



27 

8 

78 

62 



After an interval of more than six years, another meeting was called 
and held at Hartford, October 8, 1750, which appointed a committee "to 
proceed to and view the lands, and make report to the next meeting; and 
to warn the Indians not to set lire on any of the lands, upon peril of suf- 
fering the penalties of the law in case they so do." 

The next meeting, held in January, 1751, voted, "That whenever 
twenty proprietors should signify their wish to proceed to the settlement 
of tin; township, the clerk should call another meeting." The next meet- 
ing, held in October, 1753, appointed a committee to form a plan for 
dividing and settling the township, but without result. More than two 



"PROPRIETORS OF WINCHESTER," 17 

years later, January 22, 1756, another committee was raised, to view the 
lands, survey and renew the hounds and corners thereof, and to report to 
the next meeting a plan of laying out and settling the same. The [dan 
reported and adopted at the next meeting, November, 17o7, was to lay 
out two acres on the pound to each of the proprietors, in two divisions'; 
and that Col. Samuel Talcott, Capt. Thomas Seymour, William Pitkin, 
Jr., and Mr. John Rohins, Jr., he a committee, hefore the next meeting, 
to adjust and make up the interests of each of the proprietors, for the 
more speedy settling and laying out of said two divisions ; and in January, 
1758, a committee was appointed "to make, and draw a lott for the 
proprietors, for their precedence and succession in laying out the two divi- 
sions in manner and form following, viz. : By making so many uniform 
papers as there are to he allotments, and on each of said papers write the 
name of the proprietor to have his share or allotment governed or laid 
out by said draft, aud in a just and proper manner cause said papers to he 
drafted out of some covered instrument, as Providence shall direct the 
lotts. No. one, two, three, &c, in order as they come out, and make a 
return thereof to the proprietors under their hands;" and any proprietor 
owning by purchase or otherwise, to have all his rights added together in 
one allotment. 

The committee was instructed to divide the township into six tiers, 
running northerly and southerly, parallel with the eastern line of the 
township : the first five to be one mile aud six rods wide (including a 
reservation for a six-rod highway, northerly and southerly, where it will 
best accommodate), and the sixth, or westernmost tier, so broad as to take 
up the rest of the land. They were then to begin at the southwest corner 
of the township, and lay out the lot first drawn by lines at right angles to 
the tier lines, and so proceed northward, in course, as the lots were drawn 
(each lot containing one acre to the pound of the proprietor's interest) not 
less than three and a-half miles, unless the next lot will extend more than 
three aud three-quarters miles northward ; and then begin at the south end 
of the next tier east, and then to proceed northward, as in the first tier ; 
and then to proceed with the third tier east in the same manner. 

In laying out the second division, the committee wei'e to begin at the 
northeast corner of the township, and lay out the first lot to the same 
proprietor who had the first allotment in the first division ; and then to 
proceed southerly, laying out lots to the proprietors of the corresponding 
lots in the first division, in successive tiers, of the same extent southward 
as those in the first division were to extend northward. * 

In the first division the committee were instructed to locate the rights 

of Caleb Beach, Landlord Mott and his son Mott, and of Ebenezer and 

Joseph Preston, so as to take into their allotments the lands and buildings 

then occupied and improved by them. They were also to reserve, in the 

3 



18 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

second division, two mill lots of six acres each — one on the Still river, 
embracing the Gilbert Clock Company's works, and the other " The Old 
Forge Privilege," on the lake outlet, now owned by the Winsted Manu- 
facturing Company. 

On the fourth Monday of May, 1758, the committee reported their 
action, and exhibited a plan of their survey and allotments of the two 
divisions to a meeting of the proprietors, which was accepted and ordered 
to be recorded. 

The third and final division of lands in the township was ordered in 
November, 1763, and the committee reported their laying out <>f the 
same December 1st following; which report was accepted and ordered to 
be recorded. The undivided land in the northwest, or Danbury quarter, 
was laid out in three half-mile tiers, and one tier of one hundred rods, 
running northerly, from the first division lands to Colebrook line, parallel 
with the west line of the town and reaching easterly to the third or west- 
ernmost tier of the second division, and allotments of one acre to the 
pound were made on a new drawing of lots, beginning at the southerly 
end of the westernmost tier and proceeding northerly to Colebrook line ; 
then beginning at the north end of the second tier and proceeding to 
the south end, then proceeding northerly on the third tier, and returning 
southerly on the one hundred-rod tier to its southerly end. The remain- 
ing allotments were made on the west, south, and east shores of Long 
Lake, so as to appropriate all the undivided lands of the township, except 
a section about a mile square at the southeast corner of the township, 
afterwards taken on execution by parties who had made the " Old North 
Road," by order of the General Assembly, — and known as the " I lenshaw 
Tract." * 

Reservations of six-rod highways were made, running northerly and 
southerly, " where they would best accommodate," in all the tiers ; and 
located reservations, four rods wide, were made easterly and westerly, at 
irregular intervals, across the tiers; but the reservations in the aggregate 
fell far short of the requirements of the town. 

So far as the general plan and mechanical execution of iliis survey is 
concerned, it seems excellent. The tier lines — except a blunder in their 
bearings in the first division — were accurately laid out and well defined. 
The lines of marked trees between the lots and on the tier lines, are still 
readily found and traced, wherever the primitive forest remains. The 
renter bounds, with stones containing the initials of the original owners, 
are generally still •to be found in sections outside of the villages. But 
the system of triple division of owners' rights operated very unfairly on 
the small proprietors, and this injustice was aggravated by the width of 
the tiers on which the rights were laid. This operation may be illustrated 
by examples. 



"PROPRIETORS OF WINCHESTER." 19 

Joseph Root had a proprietary right of one pound on the list of 1720 
It entitled him to three acres of land. One of these was set to hirn 
unless he had sold his right to some larger proprietor, in a strip of land 
in the first division, one mile long and half a rod wide ; another acre in 
the second division, of the same dimensions, and the third acre in a strip 
half a mile long and one rod wide. John Camp's heirs had a two-pound 
interest, which in like manner was allotted to them in two detached strips 
of one rod wide and a mile long, and a third of two rods wide and half ;i 
mile long. In this way all the small proprietors found their allotments 
made in three detached driblets, instead of in one saleable plot ; and only 
eighteen out of one hundred and six proprietors had allotments in parcels 
of one hundred acres or more. 

The reservations for northerly and southerly highways could be located 
within each tier, where the road would best accommodate, but the located 
reservations for easterly and westerly highways could not be used unless 
the nature of the ground was adapted to a traveled road. As a conse- 
quence of this, so hilly and precipitous is the territory of the town that 
scarcely one of these reservations has been opened for public travel, and 
not one in its whole extent. The result is that probably no town in the 
State has afforded as little encouragement to its settlers in the matter of 
highways. 

In another respect there was a meanness in the allotment of the land 
which it is to be hoped is unparalleled. It had been the uniform custom 
of township proprietors to make a liberal reservation of lands to aid the 
settlers in the support of the gospel and of common schools. Our step- 
fathers gave not a rood of land for support of schools, at home or abroad, 
and as to religious endowments, they allotted three hundred acres each to 
two of their own resident clergymen, who, not being subject to taxation 
could not regularly come in for their shares of the ill-gotten spoil. 



CHAPTER III 



PHYSICAL CONFORMATION. 



The physical conformation of the township was so forbidding as to offer 
few inducements to settlers, especially to the dwellers on the rich mead- 
ows and uplands of the Connecticut Valley. At all events, not one of 
the original proprietors ever came to occupy his new domain. The 
intervale lands of the township along the streams were nai'row and lean, 
hemmed in by abrupt hills, mainly abounding with rocks of all sizes, 
projecting above the soil. Mountain ridges, with precipitous cliffs, ran 
through the town in northerly and southerly directions. The forests 
made up the deficient size of their trees by their number and variety. 
The lordly pine was rare. The hemlock predominated in the eastern 
section, and the sugar-maple and beech in the western. The chestnut, 
though in few parts of the town so frequent as others, was the patriarchial 
tree, majestic in size, and venerable in age. Many of them are still to be 
found from four to five feet in diameter at the butt, while the stumps of 
others show a still larger size. The birch, ash, bass, white wood and 
black oak everywhere abounded. The hickory and white oak were rare. 
The elm grew to some extent on the intervale lands. Beneath the hem- 
lock forests, thick and almost impenetrable growths of laurel, or calmia, 
were often found covering many acres. The shores of ponds and marshes 
were lined with thorny vines, as impenetrable as the chaparral of more 
southern latitudes. 

The mountain ridges are low continuations of the Green Mountain 
ranges, generally precipitous on the eastern side, and sloping westward. 
The first of these forms nearly a continuous range through the town, 
parallel with its eastern boundary, and a mile distant therefrom, with 
only one opening of less than a half mile, where east and west. roads arc 
practicable. A second range, more irregular in its direction and less 
continuous, borders the west side of the two lakes, and extends north- 
ward to Colebrook. Spurs of this range occupy a considerable portion 
of the northwest or " Dan bury Quarter" of the town. Picturesque 
views, some of them of great beauty, are obtained from every mountain 
summit. The highest elevation in the town, west of Long Lake, in the 
old Winchester parish, commands a view of the Talcott and Bolton 



PHYSICAL CONFORMATION. 21 

Mountains in the east, and the mountains of Berkshire in Massachusetts, 
and the Taconic range in New York. 

The geological formation is wholly primitive, and mainly of Gneiss 
rock in contorted strata, generally dipping westward, at a considerable 
angle. Pure granite occurs in veins and boulders in the western purl inn 
of the town. Veins and boulders of fine-grained gneiss, colored by an 
intermixture of epidote, and well adapted to building purposes, are found 
iu the eastern section. Ill-defined veins of limestone are found on the 
extreme eastern border, but not in quantity or quality to make them 
available. Metallic veins are unfrequent. 

A vein of specular magnetic oxide of iron, near the top of Street Hill 
in the northeast part of the town, was partially worked late in the last 
century, and abandoned. 

The ore was bloomed at a forge in Colebrook, and found to produce a 
good quantity of bar iron. Other veins, or beds, of larger size, in the 
same vicinity, are so impregnated with sulphur as to be worthless. These 
veins were traced by Doctor Percival, in a southwestern direction, to 
the highlands in Putnam County, N. Y., where they have been exten- 
sively worked for smelting in the blast furnaces at Cold Spring on the 
Hudson. 

Recently a very rich specular ore has been found in the Danbury 
section of the town, boi*dering on the Connecticut Western Railroad. 
The location has been explored by Professor Hall, of Albany, who 
describes it as an imperfect vein or bed in the contorted Gneiss Rock, 
which promises to grow wider as the shaft is carried downward. It is 
between three and four feet thick at the surface, descending into the 
hill nearly perpendicularly, and trending easterly and westerly. The ore 
is free from admixture of sulphur or other deleterious substances, and a 
large portion of it will yield from eighty to ninety per cent, of metal. 
It is held by joint-stock owners, whose explorations have, as yet, been 
very imperfect. Its location at a high point of hill, sloping rapidly down 
to Mad River and the Connecticut Western Railroad, gives it a high 
prospective value. Indications of this, or other veins of similar quality of 
ore, are frequent in the adjacent region. 

Minerals are rare in this formation. Garnets and schorl are occasion- 
ally found. Quartz crystals, of considerable size, but imperfect forma- 
tion, are found in a decomposed vein, near the Dugway School House 
and elsewhere. Rose quartz, in beautiful specimens, but not in situ, have 
been found in the borough of Winsted. Large and beautiful specimens 
of flesh-colored feldspar, with crystalline faces well defined, have been 
thrown out from the rock cuttings of the Connecticut Western Railroad.* 



* For description of the geology of this region, see " Percival's Survey," page 119, 
and onward. 



22 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

The soil of the township is mainly a reddish, gravelly loam, adapted to 
grasses, corn, oats, and potatoes, but not to other cereals. Clay lands are 
found occasionally on the higher ridges. The alluvial along the water 
courses is generally sandy loam of little fertility. Nearly all of the lands 
are devoted to dairy and stock-raising purposes. The smoother drylands, 
where not choked with stones, are occasionally broken up and subjected 
to a rotation of potato, corn, and oat crops, perhaps more to improve their 
grass-growing capacity than for direct profit. Milk for the New York 
market is the staple product, save in the vicinity of the villages, where 
market products are in demand. 

Springs of the purest water everywhere abound, and rarely is a dwell- 
ing to be found, out of the borough limits, which has not its aqueduct. 

Long Lake extends from near the Torrington line northerly, a distance 
of three and a half miles, and forms the dividing line of the two parishes" 
for that distance. It is surrounded by mountainous ridges on the eastern 
and western shores, and at the northeasterly end pours its waters over 
eleven factory wheels, down a ravine, into Mad River, distant half a 
mile from its outlet, and one hundred and fifty feet below its surface, in 
the center of West Winsted village. It is alike the pride and the source 
of the prosperity of the town. 

In June, 1771, the proprietors of Winchester granted to Richard 
Smith, the proprietor of the " Old Forge," at Robertsville, a right " to 
draw off or lower the Long Pond in Winchester one and a half feet, 
for the benefit of his iron works, during the pleasure of proprietors." 
During the same year, David Austin became the owner of the land at the 
outlet of the lake, and soon after built a grist-mill and saw-mill on the 
premises now owned by the Henry Spring Company, and with the con- 
currence of Mr. Smith lowered the channel of the outlet, and erected a 
dam and bulkhead, so as to raise the surface of the lake some four feet, 
and to draw the water through a gate at the bottom of the channel, thus 
securing a reservoir six feet in depth over the whole lake surface, and 
controlling the drawing and closing of the bulkhead gate at his own 
pleasure. The uncontested exercise of this right for a long series of 
years secured to him a good title to control the water of the lake. This 
individual control, and a prudent drawing of the water during working 
days, and working hours only, almost threefolds the working power of 
the stream running night and day through the week. The seasons when 
a regular supply of water, during the whole year, has failed, have been 
very rare indeed. It is this certainty of a regular supply, alike in flood 
time and drought, which has attracted manufacturing enterprises, and 
sustained them in successful operation. 

In 1806, or 1807, the frail wooden dam which raised the water above 
its original level, gave way on the east side of the bulkhead, during a 



PHYSICAL CONFORMATION. 23 

spring freshet. The danger of an outflow, most disastrous to the works 
on the stream, and the village at the foot of the hill, was imminent, but 
the disaster had been apprehended, and a good working force of men and 
teams was on the ground when the break occurred. Hardly had the 
rush of water through the breach begun, when a tree trunk was floated 
in i he breach, and securely fastened at each end. Spars and plank from 
the neighboring mill were at hand, and a temporary dam was forthwith 
improvised by the use of swingling tow, straw, and gravel. During the 
following summer and fall, a solid causeway, between two substantial 
stone walls, and wide enough for a roadway, was laid down and raised to 
a safe height, some three rods outside of the original dam, and a new bulk- 
head of a permanent character was erected on the line of the causeway. 
This raised the high-water line about one foot higher than before. 

In I860, the borough of Winsted was authorized by the Legislature to 
raise the high-water level of the lake four feet above the previous high- 
water mark, and to take water therefrom by aqueduct, and convey and 
distribute the same into and through the borough, in such quantities as 
the conveniences of the borough should require. The same season, an 
imperfect embankment was raised to the required height, which during 
the following year was perfected by raising the former causeway to the 
same elevation, and protecting it by a thoroughly-built outer wall and two 
wide waste-weirs. This raises the surface, and expands the shores of the 
lake, so as to make a reservoir of about twelve feet in depth from high- 
water mark to the bottom of the bulkhead gates. 

The Little Pond is a smaller body of pure and limpid water, covering 
a surface of about fifty acres, lying about a third of a mile northwesterly 
of Long Lake, at an elevation of ninety feet above, and discharging its 
waters into it by " Sucker Brook," running southerly between the two 
bodies of water, a distance of one mile. Neither of these lakes are tvt\ by 
large streams of water, but both are mainly supplied by springs. Both of 
them, in early times, abounded with trout of large size, some of them 
reaching a weight of six to seven pounds. Perch, roach, bull-heads, and 
eels were abundant. About IK 15. pickerel were introduced from the 
South wick Ponds, by Colonel Samuel Hoadley. The Parmington river 
" Dace," as they are called, were introduced several years since as live 
bait, by pickerel fishermen, and escaping from their hooks, grew and mul- 
tiplied, reaching the size and shape of a shad. Like the pickerel, it is a 
gamy fish, and these two intruders had exterminated the trout, and largely 
thinned out the smaller fish, when, about 1860, the black bass was trans- 
ferred by E. S. Woodford, Esq., and has become the gamiest champion of 
our lakes. 

Mad River, which rises in Norfolk, runs its rapid course southeasterly, 
receiving the lake stream, and emptying into Still River, in the borough 



24 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

of Winsted, has until recent years been little used above the junction of 
the lake stream, except for saw mills. It now furnishes water for a 
cutlery establishment, and for two of the largest tanneries in the state, 
and will, Avhen proper reservoirs are built near its sources, furnish an 
important addition to our water power. The Connecticut Western Rail- 
road, by an average grade of about eighty feet ascent to the mile, finds its 
way through the town, along the banks of this stream, to its summit level 
in Norfolk. 

Still River, rising in Torringford, runs with little fall along -the border 
of the Naugatuck Railroad to its junction w T ith Mad River, and thence 
still northerly through the borough, furnishing near the borough line the 
power of two of the best water privileges of the town. The fall of water 
from the lake surface to the northern limit of the borough, exceeds 225 
tcrt. all of which is profitably employed for manufacturing purposes. 

The other streams in the Winsted section of the town are small, and 
unfitted for manufacturing purposes. In the west section, the two head 
branches of the Naugatuck River have their source. The eastern branch 
proceeds from a small pond near Norfolk line, and runs southerly to 
Wolcottville. and affords good water power as it approaches Torrington 
line. The other runs along Hall Meadow, and passes through the south- 
east corner of the town to its junction with the east branch at Wolcott- 
ville, where the united streams take the name of Naugatuck River. 



C H A V T E R TV 



INDIANS— GAME— THOROUGHFARES. 



The Green Woods section of Litchfield County, though abounding 
with game, seems not to have been a permanent abiding place of the 
[ndian, save along the Tunxis or Farmington River on the east, and the 
Housatonic on the western border. The Scaticoke Indians dwelt along 
the Housatonic, their chief residence in Kent. The Weatogues, of Sims- 
bury, crowded out from the Tunxis valley by the white settlers, took 
refuge on the meadows of the Housatonic in Canaan. 

On the east, a small tribe, or fragment of a tribe, probably crowded out 
of Farmington, took up their abode in New Hartford, near the gorge 
where the Farmington River breaks through a mountain ridge, which 
spot was designated by the early settlers as " the Kingdom," and even- 
tually by the specific name of "Satan's Kingdom." 

A portion of this tribe moved up the Farmington, to the foot of Ragged 
Mountain in Barkhamsted. Modern wiseacres assert that their council 
fire was the mythical " Barkhamsted Light House," of which so much 
has been said and so little known. The head man. or the last man of 
this tribe, named Chaugum, lived and reigned to near the close of the 
last century. His descendants in the female line, a race of bleached-out, 
basket- making, root-gathering vagabonds, with high cheek bones and 
bow-and-arrow eyes, have continued to dwell on the Ragged Mountain 
domain, and kept up the, council tires until a very recent period. A 
daughter of Chaugum married a runaway servant of Secretary Wyllys of 
Hartford. They settled in the Danbury quarter of Winchester, and their 
descendants are the only known representatives of the aboriginal race in 
this town. 

Not a single, mountain, lake, or river, bears an Indian name. The 
flint arrow-head is occasionally found on the intervale .lands, and incon- 
siderable numbers along the south shores of Long Lake, together with 
some other stone implements, indicating a resort there for fishing and 
hunting. There was also a cleared spot around a copious spring of water 
on the east shore of the lake, on land of Deacon Joseph W. Hurlbut, 
where numerous arrow-heads have been found. 
4 



26 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

Game was abundant at the early settlement of the town. A hunting 
lodge was erected on the bridle-path from New Hartford to Norfolk, 
near the south line of the town, before any settlement was made, and a 
deer park was enclosed near the reservoir pond, on the west branch of 
the Naugatuck, at a very early period. 

Bear's meat was by no means a rare dish among our early settlers. It 
was in some families almost their ordinary fare. The records of Justice 
Alvord show frequent prosecutions for killing deer, out of season, up to 
1790. Wolves abounded as late,, or later, than the Revolutionary War. 
Mr. Levi Norton, while living in the red house between the two ponds, 
after 1783, returning from a neighbor's after nightfall, encountered a 
drove of these border ruffians on his own clearing, and was saved from an 
attack by the timely help of his powerful mastiff, which, on hearing his 
cry of alarm, rushed from his house and put them to flight. 

Panthers, or " painters " as they were called in olden times, were 
not unfrequently shot by early settlers. Wild cats are still indigenous to 
the mountain range east of the lake, and running southerly into Torring- 
ton, as well as the Danbury quarter, where one was killed in November, 
1871. Foxes and raccoons are still sufficiently numerous to afford good 
sport to huntsmen. Wild turkeys were brought in by our hunters as 
late as 1810, and probably later. A full-grown female hedgehog, or 
porcupine, the nursing mother of a living brood, was killed as late as 
1860, on the Colebrook border. 

Speckled trout, of large size and rare beauty, abounded in all our 
lakes and streams. In the boyhood of the writer, almost every ripple of 
Mad River, within the borough limits, had its trout ready to seize the 
bait or fly of the fisherman. In the lake some of them have been taken 
weighing five to six pounds. Perch, roach, and bull-heads of large size, 
and in great numbers, formerly occupied our lakes, but since the intro- 
duction of pickerel they have essentially fallen off in size and numbers. 
Fresh water eels may be caught in large numbers, in weirs along the 
lake stream, when descending at the fall equinox to deposit their spawn 
in some lower region, and in the following August, their offspring, from 
three to six inches long, return in immense numbers. The basin of the 
Still River Falls, near Colebrook line, is for several days alive with them. 
They may be seen laboriously crawling up every rock which is moistened 
by the spray of the fall, and endeavoring to reach their ancestral lake or 
dam. At the foot of the Niagara Falls this phenomenon may be wit- 
nessed on a large scale at the same season of the year, or later, and 
probably in other places where the fall is too high and the current too 
swift for the young eels to stem it without contact with the rocks. 

From these slippery reptiles the transition is natural to their finless 
congeners. Of these the rattle snake is the only one of a venomous 



GAME— THOROUGHFARES. 27 

character. They were numerous when the country was new, and are not 
yet extinct. One or more of them has, within twenty-five years, been 
killed in the wood-house of a residence on Main Street, in the borough of 
Winsted, and others in the contiguous region. The milk snake still, on 
occasions, robs the birds' nests in the shrubbery around our houses, and is 
sometimes suspected of milking our cows in the fields. The peaceful 
striped snake is not unfrequently caught in a disabled state for running 
away by reason of his gormandizing propensity for swallowing toads and 
frogs, and, when caught in the act, incurs the penalty of a bruised head, 
though in other circumstances he may, in these lax times, be carefully let 
alone, notwithstanding the scriptural malediction. 

Before the survey and allotment of the Winchester lands, settlements 
in Goshen, Norfolk, and Canaan had begun, rendering it necessary for 
settlers from the eastern towns to pass through our township to their new 
homes. The Lawrences, and other settlers of Canaan, about 1738 to 
1740, came from Windsor and Siinsbury, first entered the wilderness by 
way of New Hartford, the northeast part of Winchester and southwest 
part of Colebrook, to the center of Norfolk. They left their families and 
stock at points along the way, where openings in the forests could be 
found for grazing, and went forward with their axes and cut down the 
trees and cleared a trail from one such opening to another, and then 
moved their caravan. Tradition says they made one of their halts on the 
Hoyt Farm in Colebrook, and went forward with their trail to a natural 
meadow at the northerly border of the small pond, a mile east of Norfolk 
Center, where they found a dead loon, and hence the name by which the 
location is still known. They returned, and brought forward their fami- 
lies and flocks to this oasis. From Loon Meadow they cleared their way 
to the foot of Hay Stack Mountain, and thence along the Blackberry 
River, to the land of Canaan, which to them must have been a happy 
land indeed after the toils and privations of their journey. 

Where this trail passed through Winchester is not definitely known. 
It was, doubtless, the first that penetrated the town, and continued to be 
the traveled path in the direction of Albany for more than twenty 
years. 

The General Assembly, at its May Session in 1758, "being advised 
that the road or way now often traveled through the towns of Simsbury, 
New Hartford, and Norfolk, to and through the northwestern parts of 
Canaan, towards Albany, is in many respects ill-chosen and unfit for use, 
and that some new and better road through said towns, or some of them, 
or the towns adjacent, may probably be discovered more direct and con- 
venient, as well for carriages as traveling, to the great accommodation 



28 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

and benefit of his Majesty's subjects, and especially in time of war, 
occasionally traveling or marching, either from the eastern or central 
parts of the colony," therefore — " Resolved, that Colonel John Pitkin of 
Hartford, Seth Wetmore of Middletown, Mr. Wells of Glassenbury, and 
Colonel David Whitney of Canaan, be appointed a committee, as soon 
as conveniently may be, to repair to and through said towns (and towns 
adjacent if need be), and with all care and diligence to view and observe 
said roads now used ; and also, with the utmost care to explore and find 
out how and where any other shorter and better way, in whole or in 
part, may be practicable, and their full description thereof, with their 
opinion thereon, to make report to the Assembly at their session in 
October (then) next."* 

This committee, at the May Session in 1 759, reported a new line of 
road, not departing in any instance more than two miles from a straight 
line, extending from the Court House in Hartford, to Colonel Whitney's 
in Canaan, and a plan of the intervening towns, with the line pricked 
thereon. 

The Assembly accepted this report, and directed the committee " to lay 
out and make plain and certain, the said new country road from the 
mansion house of Samuel Humphrey in Simsbury, to Colonel David 
Whitney's in Canaan." In May, 1760, the committee having discharged 
their duty, the Assembly ordered the way to be cleared and made passable 
for traveling before November 20, 1761, by the towns and proprietors of 
townships through which it ran, and in case of non-compliance by any 
such towns and proprietors, the committee was to take such other 
measures to that end, at the expense of the delinquents, as would without 
fail accomplish the service, before May 1, 1762. 

This thoroughfare, known to a former generation • as " The North 
Road," and now almost a myth, had in its day an importance and renown 
which justifies our detailed history of its origin and progress. According 
to tradition, it was a wonder of the age that a direct and practicable route 
could be found and opened through the jungles and over the succession 
of steep rocky hills and mountains of the Green Woods for travel, and 
the movement of troops and munitions between Hartford and Albany. Jt 
soon became, and continued until 1 800, the great and almost the sole 
thoroughfare of the colony in the direction of Albany. Continental troops 
passed over it for frontier service. Detachments of Burgoyne's army, as 
prisoners of war, marched over it to the quarters assigned them. 



* Colonial Records, vol. 9, pp. 94-5. 



THOROUGHFARES. 29 

There is a tradition that Col. Ethan Allen, while on military service 
in the Revolutionary War, presumed to desecrate the Sabbath by traveling 
over this road, instead of spending the day in sacred meditations at the 
hostelry of Landlord Pbelps, or Roberts, on Wallen's hill, or of Land- 
lord Freedom Wright, further westward, when a little bushy-headed 
Grand Juror, of our town, emerged from his log cabin on the road-side, 
siezed the bridle-rein of the Colonel's charger and attempted to arrest 
him as a Sabbath-breaker. The Colonel, sternly eying the legal digni- 
tary, drew his sword, and flourishing it aloft, irreverently exclaimed, 
"You d — d woodchuck ! get back into your burrow, or I'll cut your head 
off!" Grand Juror Balcomb, finding what, a Tartar he had caught, 
prudently abandoned his captive and retired to his cabin. 

Ii should not be inferred from the amount of iravel thai this road was 
an A|i|ii:oi Way. On the Contrary, direct as it was, it went up and down 
the highest hills, on uneven beds of rocks and stones, and passed marshy \ al- 
leys on corduroy of the coarsest hemlock log texture, commencing at the 
Nbrthend village in New Hartford, it ran westerlj up a steep hill, then 
turned northwesterly through the Bourbon region, crossing the Given 
Woods turnpike, a little west of the toll-gate, then northerly by zigzags 
to the top of a lofty hill, then over Wallen's Hill bj thenortheast school 
house, down to Still River near Daniel Wilson'-, then up Dishmill Hill 
and onward by the Rowley Pond, to Colebrook, and onward through Cole- 
brook center to Pond Hill, in Norfolk, and ilience by Norfolk center and 
Canaan toward Albany . 

Another bridle-path entered the township from the vicinity of Burr- 

'h- and passed northwesterly bj Landlord Mott's Tavern to the south 

f„ Norfolk before any settlement was made. In 1762, a committee 

2 ^sembly, previously appointed, reported a highway along this 

tjs inning at a rock about three rods west of the fore door of the 

g ging to Kev. Mr. Gold in Torringford, and running in a north- 

ection a little more than a mile to Still River, about a hund- 

>uth of Vale's Mill, (at Burrville,) theme in a northwesterly 

>y Spectacle Pond and Mott's house, to a stake and stones in 

ine." 

pas the South Road, by which emigrants from the southeastern 

is wended their toilsome way to the western townships, in proceS'- /er 

dement. It was so "hard a road to travel" that good Landlord pthey 

ing near the Hayden brickyard, used, as it was said, to f 'wners 

raveling guests until after morning worship that they might l an( * SIX 

benefit of his prayers in aid of their arduous efforts to get - cu P ie d his 

dug-way road, west of Burrville, an aid greatly ne- ' i 1 frietor ever had 

The first of these roads was for many years thf ion of his father , g land He 

„iC no descendant behind him. 



28 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

and benefit of his Majesty's subjects, and especially in time of war, 
occasionally traveling or marching, either from the eastern or central 
parts of the colony," therefore — " Resolved, that Colonel John Pitkin of 
Hartford, Seth Wetmore of Middletown, Mr. Wells of Glassenbury, and 
Colonel David Whitney of Canaan, be appointed a committee, as soon 
as conveniently may be, to repair to and through said towns (and town.-; 
adjacent if need be), and with all care and diligence to view and observe 
said roads now used; and also, with the utmost care to explore and find 
out how and where any other shorter and better way, in whole or in 
part, may be practicable, and their full description thereof, with then- 
opinion thereon, to make report to the Assembly at their session in 
October (then) next."* 

This committee, at the May Session in 1 7.59, reported a new line of 
road, not departing in any instance more than two miles from a straight 
line, extending from the Court House in Hartford, to Colonel Whitney's 
in Canaan, and a plan of the intervening towns, with the line pricked 
thereon. 

The Assembly accepted this report, and directed the committee " to lay 
out and make plain and certain, the said new country road from the 
mansion house of Samuel Humphrey in Simsbury, to Colonel David 
Whitney's in Canaan." In May, 1760, the committee having discharged 
their duty, the Assembly ordered the way to be cleared and made passable 
for traveling before November 20, 1761, by the towns and proprietors of 
townships through which it ran, and in case of non-compliance by any 
such towns and proprietors, the committee was to take such other 
measures to that end, at the expense of the delinquents, as would without 
fail accomplish the service, befoi'e May 1, 1762. 

This thoroughfare, known to a former generation- as "The North 
Road," and now almost a myth, had in its day an importance and renown 
which justifies our detailed history of its origin and progress. According 
to tradition, it was a wonder of the age that a direct and practicable route 
could be found and opened through the jungles and over the succession 
of steep rocky hills and mountains of the Green Woods for travel, and 
the movement of troops and munitions between Hartford and Albany- Jt 
soon became, and continued until 1800, the great and almost the sole 
thoroughfare of the colony in the direction of Albany. Continental troops 
passed over it for frontier service. Detachments of Burgoyne's army, as 
prisoners of war, marched over it to the quarters assigned them. 



* Colonial Records, vol. 9, pp. 94-5. 



THOROUGHFARES. 29 

There is a tradition that Col. Ethan Allen, while on military service 
in the Revolutionary War, presumed to desecrate the Sabbath by traveling 
over this road, instead of spending the day in sacred meditations at the 
hostelry of Landlord Pbelps, or Roberts, on Wallen's hill, or of Land- 
lord Freedom Wright, further westward, when a little bushy-headed 
Grand Juror, of our town, ('merged from his log cabin on the road-side, 
siezed the bridle-rein of the Colonel's charger and attempted to arrest 
him as a Sabbath-breaker. The Colonel, sternly eying the legal digni- 
tary, drew his sword, and flourishing it aloft, irreverently exclaimed, 
"You d — d woodchuck ! get back into your burrow, or I'll cut your head 
off! " Grand Juror Balcomb, finding what a Tartar he had caught, 
prudently abandoned his captive and retired to his cabin. 

It should not be inferred from the amount of travel that this road was 
an Appian Way. On the contrary, direct as it was, it went up and down 
the highest hills, on uneven beds of rocks and stones, and passed marshy val- 
leys on corduroy of the coarsest hemlock log texture, commencing at the 
Northend village in NeAV Hartford, it ran westerly up a steep hill, then 
turned northwesterly through the Bourbon region, crossing the Green 
Woods turnpike, a little west of the toll-gate, then northerly by zigzags 
to the top of a lofty hill, then over Wallen's Hill by the northeast school 
house, down to Still River near Daniel Wilson's, then up Dishmill Hill 
and onward by the Rowley Pond, to Colebrook, and onward through Cole- 
brook center to Pond Hill, in Norfolk, and thence by Norfolk center and 
Canaan toward Albany. 

Another bridle-path entered the township from the vicinity of Burr- 
ville and passed northwesterly by Landlord Mott's Tavern to the south 
part of Norfolk before any settlement was made. In 1762, a committee 
of the Assembly, previously appointed, reported a highway along this 
route, "beginning at a rock about three rods west of the fore door of the 
house belonging to Rev. Mi-. Gold in Torringford, and running in a north- 
westerly direction a little more than a mile to Still River, about a bund- 
led rods south of Yale's Mill, (at Burrville,) thence in a northwesterly 
direction by Spectacle Pond and Mott's house, to a stake and stones in 
Norfolk line." 

This was the South Road, by which emigrants from the southeastern 
towns wended their toilsome way to the western townships, in process of 
settlement. It was so "hard a, road to travel" that good Landlord burr, 
living near the Hayden brick yard, used, as it was said, to detain his 
traveling guests until after morning worship that they might ln^., r/,,7 
benefit of his prayers in aid of their arduous efforts to get ;jp t j |( . /,/ 
dug-way road, west of Burrville, an aid greatly neeueu.''" 

The first of these roads was for many years tbft; only way of a* cess ^ rom 



30 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

the east to the Winsted section of the town. By the second, many, but not 
all of the immigrants, came into the " Old Society." Several of the earli- 
est pioneers came in from Torrington and Goshen, at the extreme south- 
west corner of the township, and located in Hall Meadow awl the Blue 
Street region. The later roads will be adverted to as the settlement of 
the town progresses. 



CHAPTER V. 



RESUME— PIONEER SETTLERS. 



We have, in the preceding chapters, opened the way for the long-de- 
layed settlement of our town. It seemed necessary to show, first, why 
the large domain of our western lands — the only unoccupied territory of 
the colony, Litchfield excepted — remained unsurveyed and unavailable 
for settlement from 1G86 to 1729, a period of forty-three years. Second, 
if possible to learn why, after the two giant towns had secured and di- 
vided between them what may be aptly called their conquered territory, 
our Hartford step-fathers should still have held their assigned portion of 
the spoil from sub-division and settlement, twenty-nine years longer ; and 
third, to solve, if possible, the wisdom of the sub-divisions finally made. 
If the wisdom consisted in working out the problem — given, the settle- 
ment of a new town; required, how not to do it? — we have nearly 
reached a solution. 

The triple division gave to each rich proprietor, at the rate of one acre 
to the pound, three detached farms of large size and compact forms; to 
each forehanded owner, three small farms, two of them with average 
length and width as one to six, and one of half the same length and twice 
the width ; to the poorest men, two driblets a mile long, and from half a 
rod to five or ten rods wide, and one of half the length and twice the width. 

There was not sufficient variation in the quality of lands to rentier the 
triple division expedient, for the whole area of the township was hilly and 
mountainous, except narrow intervales of gravelly or marshy lands along 
the streams. 

The rich owners, with hardly an exception, held their lands, awaiting 
a rise in their value, to grow out of the life-and-death struggle of poor 
settlers on adjoining lands. None of the forehanded or rich owners ever 
personally occupied their land, and the poor owners could not if they 
would; they could only sell out for mere songs their driblets to owners 
of larger tracts of adjacent lands. Not one of the one hundred and six 
original proprietors to whom allotments were made, ever occupied his 
lands or dwelt in the town, and only one son* of a proprietor ever had 



* Thomas Hosmer, Jr., was an early settler on a portion of his father's land. He 
removed to Canaan after about ten years, and left no descendant behind him. 



32 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

a permanent residence among us ; and only three known descendants* of a 
proprietor now reside in the town. 

We have already adverted to the scant and, to a great extent, unavail- 
able reservations of land for highways, and to the endowment of two 
Hartford ministers by grants of three hundred acres of land to each; and 
the want of any endowment to aid the poor and almost starving settlers 
in supporting the gospel and common schools among themselves. A show 
of liberality, on a small scale, is made in the reservation of two mill lots, 
apparently designed to encourage the erection of mills to grind the corn 
and rye of the early settlers. If they were reserved for this purpose, 
they were not so appropriated. Both of them were disposed of by leases 
of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, without conditions, for the benefit 
of the proprietary body. 

During the twenty-nine years that the Hartford proprietors were matur- 
ing a plan of division of their joint lands, many individual owners sold 
and conveyed away their undivided rights, by deeds, which were recorded 
in the proprietors' records. Caleb Brack, named of Goshen, became the 
owner of one of these undivided rights, by a deed dated May 21, 1750. 
Either despairing of a division ever being made, or hoping against hope 
for such consummation in the future, he at once, or in a, very short time 
after his purchase, appropriated a small tract of laud and erected thereon 
the first dwelling house in the township. It stood on the east side of the 
Hall Meadow road, about halt a mile north of Torrington line, and about 
forty rods east of the line of Goshen, and some thirty rods south of the 
new house of Rufus Drake. This house or shanty disappeared more than 
a hundred years ago', and was replaced by a one-story frame house with 
stone chimney, erected on the same site, which is still standing — venerable 
in its marks of age, and still more venerable from its associations with the 
first human habitation in the town. 

In the proprietors' vote of January, 1758, ordering the survey and 
allotment of the first and second divisions of land, the committee were 
instructed "to lay out to Mr. Caleb Beach or his assignees, his share or 
allotment in the Division where his house now is, so as to take in his 
house, barn, and orchard, if his allotment shall be wide enough to take 
[them] in." The lot set out to him or his assignees under these instruc- 
tions, is a lot of sixteen and two thirds acres, within lot No. 6, in the first 
division. He conveyed away his right to this allotment, March 18, 1756, 
and probably soon after moved back to Goshen, where he died January 
13, 1760, aged sixty-one years. His will was probated and recorded in 
the Litchfield Probate Court, and contained the following bequests of his 
earthly possessions : 

* Solomon R. Hinsdale and his child, and Mary P. Hinsdale, descended from Wil- 
liam Pitkin. 



PIONEEK SETTLERS. 33 

"Imprimis, to my present beloved wife, Hannah, I give and bequeath 
one chest and one bed, and one great spinning-wheel, and one double 
spinning-wheel, to be her own and at her dispose. 

Item, To my eldest daughter, Sarah Andros, the wife of Elon Andros, 
of Wallingford, I give and bequeath to her, out of my estate, but five 
shillings ; she having received her portion of my estate before. 

Item, To my sons Caleb and Hezekiah Beach, of Goshen, I give and 
bequeath my plough irons, and drag teeth, and plow chains, viz : to my 
eldest son, Caleb, two third parts; and to Hezekiah, one third part, to be 
their own and at their dispose. 

Item, To my son, Joel Beach, of Torrington, I give and bequeath three 
steel traps, with the chains belonging to them, and my shaving knife, to 
be his own and at his dispose. 

Item, To my daughter, Margit Beach, I give and bequeath three chests, 
one tuble, six puter platters and plates, three puter basins, four puter por- 
ringers, one pair of tongs, one fire shovel, and one tramel, one pair of 
andirons, one brass warming pan, one brass skillet, a. brass kettle, one 
iron kettle and three iron pots, to be her own and at her dispose." 

\ 

Mr. Beach was grandson of Thomas Beach, an early planter of Mil- 

ti>j » 1. son and youngest child of Deacon John, of Wallingford, and brother of 
Deacon John, of Go.-hen, from whom Beach street took its name. He 
was born at Wallingford, in 1 699, where he married the first of his three 
wives. Thence he first removed to Goshen, and afterward to Winchester. 
Caleb Beach, born at Wallingford, in 1699 ; died January 13, 1761. 
He married first, May 26, 1726, Eunice Tyler. She died January 10, 
1733. He married, second, October 4, 1733, Margaret Thompson. He 
had a third wife, named Hannah. 

CHILDREN BY THE FIRST WIFE. 

I. Sarah, b. at Wallingford, Oct. 26, 1728 ; m. Elon Andrews, of Wallingford. 
IT. Caleb, b. " May 10,1732; m. Lois Preston. 

CHILDREN BY THE SECOND WIFE. 

III. Hezekiah, was in Goshen in 1760, and moved to New Ashtbrd, Mass. 

IV. Joel. 

V. Margaret. 

Joel Beach, third son of Caleb, and inheritor of his traps and shav- 
ing knife, came into the town with his father, at about fifteen years old, 
and is named as of Winchester in the record of his first marriage, in I 757. 
He afterwards lived in Torrington until 1761, when he purchased his life- 
long residence on Blue street, a little south of the stone school-house. 

He is described by a cotemporary* as "a conservative of the first 
water, — conservative in his dress, in his food, and in all his habits — six 



* Rev. Abel McEwen, D. D., of New London. 
5 



34 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

feet four or five inches high, gaunt and erect, with a pock-marked, 
weather-beaten face, large hands and feet, clothed in butternut colored 
coat, vest, and small clothes, garnished with long pewter buttons, stock- 
ings of black and white sheep's wool, cow-hide shoes of enormous size ; 
crowned with a broad-brimmed, round-topped hat of dubious color ; his 
costume on week days, Sundays, and training days, always the same, 
from early manhood to extreme old age. His fare was simple, consisting 
of bears' meat, venison, and wild turkey, when game abounded, and beef, 
pork, and mutton in after years, with toast and cider, mush and milk, and 
bean porridge, as his only luxuries." 

He was, withal, a mighty hunter, never failing to bring down the deer, 
fox, or wild turkey with his six foot shooting-iron. 

He was also a fish-fancier, and had stoned up a tank around a copious 
spring on the side of the road in front of his house, in which he kept a 
speckled trout of great size. There is another legend that a neighbor, 
with a long hooked nose, tinged at the end with deep red, coming along the 
road one day, stooped down to drink from the tank. The trout seeing the 
red protuberance, as it touched the water, and fancying it a gaudy insect, 
sprang upward and seized it. The nose recoiled, but too late. The fish 
was drawn out of the water, and dropped on dry land. Great was the 
rage of the man of the nose for a few moments, but as he surveyed the 
poor floundering fish, and reflected that he had got the worst of it, pity 
superseded wrath. Looking around and seeing no witness of his success- 
ful angling, he kindly restored the fish to the water and went on his way 
a happier man for his magnanimous act. 

Mr. Beach's wife was also a dead shot. One day, near sunset, she 
discovered a panther* in a tree near the house. Her husband was away 
but his loaded gun was at hand. She seized and primed it, took deliberate 
aim, and lodged a bullet in its brain. 

Mr. Beach was always a hard-working, temperate, and inoffensive 
man, who, in the words of the cotemporary before referred to, " had but 
little of religious theory, but in old age he became pious ; and thence, 
down to the grave, his zeal for duty and worship glowed noiselessly but 
unquestioned. He died November 28, 1820, aged eighty-four; leaving 
his original farm, neither increased nor diminished by a single acre." 

He married, at Torrington, October 18, 1757, widow Abiah Filley, of 
Torrington. He married, second, October 15, 1767, Amy Johnson, of 
Torrington. 



* The Felis Concator, vernacularly named the " painter," was indigenous to this 
region, and is said to have been killed in Guilford or its vicinity, within the past 
fifteen years. 



PIONEER SETTLERS. 



35 



CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

I. Hezekiah, b. July 19, 1768; bap. at Tor., Oct. 16, 1768. 
II. Joel, b. Oct. 3, 1769; bap. at Norfolk, Nov. 26, 1769. Killed by 

discharge of a gun, Oct. 19, 1771. 

III. Benjamin, b. Dec. 7, 1770. 

IV. Jeremiah, b. April 19, 1772; d. Sept. 25, 1776. 
V. Joshua, b. March 23, 1774. 

VI. Seba, b. Sept. 24, 1776. 

VII. Caleb, b. Nov. 27, 1777. 

VIII. Phebe, b. May 15, 1779; d. June 2, 1780. 

IX. Susanna, b. Jan. 18, 1783. 

Caleb Beach, seventh son of Joel, lived in the town landless, until 
his death, March 10, 1851. He married, June 25, 1797, Sarah 
Blakeslee. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Elizabeth, b. July 3, 1798; d. December 2, 1804. 



II. Jonathan, 

III. William, 

IV. Seba, 
V. Caleb, 



b. November 19, 1799. 
b. January 25, 1802. 
b. January 8, 1804. 
b. January 6, 1806. 



VI. Susan Serepta, b. December 10, 1807; m. July 18, 1837, Friend Holcomb. 

VII. Hezkkiah, b. July 13, 1810. 

VIII. Sarah, b. July 31, 1812. 

IX. Julia, b. April 25, 1815. 

X. Phebe, b. May 26, 1817. 

XI. Clarissa, b. June 2, 1819; m. December 31, 1837, Major Thorp, of 
Barkhamsted. 

Samuel Gilbert, from Coventry, hecame a landowner and resident 
of the town in 1752, and is named of Winchester, in a deed of 1754, 
when he prohahly moved into Torrington, where his son, Samuel, was 
baptized August 25, 1754. 



Ebenezkr Preston, from Wallingford, and Joseph Preston, from 
Farmington, became owners of an undivided right of land in 1754, under 
which they entered upon, and improved, a small tract of land adjoining 
Torrington line, extending from Blue Street Road eastward to the north, 
and South Road in the second tier, which, under a vote of the proprietors, 
was allotted to them in the division of 1758. Here was their first 
dwelling place. They afterward lived, in various parts of the town, to a 
good old age, leaving sons and daughters, none of whom — nor any of 
their descendants bearing the name — now reside among us. The race 
was not a thrifty or vigorous one, physically or intellectually. 



36 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

From the scant records of the family it is not possible to determine the 
relationships to each other of those of the name who were early 
residents. 

Martha, wife of Ebenezer Preston, d. May 16, 1770, and he m. 
February 20, 1771, Martha Catling and had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Phebe, b. July 20, 1773. 
II. Rebecca, b. August 27, 1774; bap. Tor., Sept. 18, 1774. 

Joseph Preston (senior), died in 1774. 

Joseph Preston d. in Winsted in 1824, aged 85. He is believed to 
have been son to Joseph, the pioneer. He and his wife, known as 
" Uncle Joe and Aunt Keziah," lived early in this century, in a log 
shanty on Sucker Brook. They were a simple-minded couple, who lived 
by basket-making and renovating splint-bottomed chairs. They once lost 
the day of the week, and made Sunday a day of labor. They started for 
meeting on their old pillioned horse on Monday, and learning on the 
way their unintended desecration of the Sabbath, returned home and 
spent the rest of the day in penitential and devotional exercises. 

Jonathan and John Preston, father and son, from Waterbury, 
named of Winchester in 1767, lived on a lot 41 first division, until 1769, 
after which their names disappear. 

Samuel Preston, son ot Ebenezer, owned and occupied a part of his 
father's land in 1768, and afterwards, until 1790, lived in the extreme 
south-west corner of the town. He was bap. Tor., Sept. 17, 1769; m. 
Jan. 4, 1770, Elizabeth Gleason. 



children. 



I. Martha, b. Oct. 7, 1770. 
II. Salman, b. Oct. 25, 1772. 

III. Samuel, b. Dec. 20, 1776. 

IV. Milla, b. Aug. 22, 1779. 
V. Elizabeth, b. Feb. 16, 1785. 



Landlord Adam Mott, originally from Windsor, erected his hostelry 
(in the bridle-path that preceded the Old South Road, as early as 1754. 
It stood opposite the Hurlbut Cemetery, and on or near the site of the 
house of John Netli. The building was neither imposing nor spacious. 
Its walls were of unhewn logs, its roof of hemlock bark, with an opening 



PIONEER SETTLERS. 37 

iu the ridge for the escape of smoke from the capacious stone chimney 
which ascended to the level of the garret floor. The landlord had two 
strapping boys, who slept under the roof, and occasionally worked off 
their superfluous animal force by a wrestling match before getting into 
bed. One cold winter night, when the hearth was all aglow with coals 
and embers of the consumed firewood, the boys, in their shirt tails, 
grappled for a trial of strength. They struggled long and vigorously. 
At length one of them got the dead lock of the other, at the edge of the 
yawning chimney. Both of them went headlong down the crater, into 
the coals and embers in the fireplace. Whether the tavern fare of the 
next day was called pork or bear's meat tradition does not say. It is 
presumable, however, if it was of the last night's roast, that it was dime 
brown. 

How a tavern could be sustained in this uninhabited region is hard to 
conceive. Landlord Mott, however, took courage and made the best of 
his business. To an inquiry as to how he succeeded in retailing his first 
keg of rum, he replied that he was doing remarkably well : that hunters, 
when they came along would fill their bottles, and that nearly every day 
he bought a glass of tanzy bitters of his wife, and that she would then 
buy one of him, with the same fourpence-halfpenny. 

The bark-roofed tavern, in the course of years, gave way to a veil 
lean-to mansion of the old Windsor order of architecture, and this in its 
turn to a pleasant modern cottage, drawing its water from the original 
well. 

Landlord Mott became poor, and died in his native Windsor. He had 
children (as appears by deeds on record), Jonathan, Adam, junior. Lent, 
and Eunice, wife of Aaron Neal of Farmington, and may have had 
others. 

Jonathan Mott, son of Adam, senior, came into the town with his 
father, and lived in a house on the slope of the hill, southeast of the 
tavern, which has long since disappeared. He died in 1818, aged 103, 
and was buried at the town's charge. His wife died in 1820.* 

They had a son, Simeon, baptized at Torrington, Dec. 23, 1053. 



* On the anniversary of his 100th birthday the old man proposed to have some 
kind of a celebration, and requested that Uncle Reuben, Aunt Eunice, and Br. Daniel 
iCoe be invited to come around, which was done. Having been a "Singing Master " 
n his young manhood he thought nothing could be more appropriate to the occasion 
than the singing of " Old Hundred," during the performance of which he wielded the 
wand, which was his witch-hazel staff. He got through with that part of the pro- 
gramme quite satisfactorily, Br. Coe joining most vehemently, but when he came to 
try the minuet (and try it he would) he thought he could have gone through it much 
better if he had not been so long out of practice. 



38 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



Adam Mott, Jr., succeeded his father in the homestead until 1767, 
and afterward lived west of the old Everitt Tavern. He went to Ticon- 
deroga in 1775, in Captain Sedgwick's Company; served in Captain 
Beebe's Company in 1776, at Long Island, and was in other service 
during the Revolution. He removed to Vernon, N. Y., in his old age, 
where he was frozen to death at the age of about one hundred years. 

He married Jan. 3, 1760, Abiah Filley. She died Oct. 19, 1781, and 
he married (second), February 14, 1786, Anna Cyrena Filley. She died 
June 5, 1806. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Elizabeth, b. Nov. 12, 1760; bap. in Tor., March 30, 1761. 
II. Ira, b. Feb. 13, 1764 ; bap. Tor., March 20, 1764. 

III. Diantha, b. June 12, 1766. 

IV. Lodema, b. Sept. 9, 1768; bap. Tor., June 18, 1769. 
V. Sabra, b. Nov. 1, 1770. 

VI. Orange, b. Oct. 17, 1772. 
VII. Loammi, b. May 5, 1775 ; m. Ap. 18, 1795, Polly Clark. 

VIII. Abiah, b. July 18, 1780. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

IX. Anna, b. Sept. 14, 1786. 

X. Elihu, b. Ap. 13, 1789. 

XI. Wakeman Ira, b.'De'c. 1, 1791. 

XII. Sophia, b. June 15, 1794 ; d. Jan. 6, 1808. 

XIII. Alva Gleason, b. Ap. 18, 1798. 

Lent Mott, son of Adam, senior, had land from his father near the 
old Everitt Tavern, on which he early resided. He served in the 
Northern Campaign, in 1775, and probably did other service. The name 
of his first wife, the mother of two of his children, does not appear. He 
married (second), January 1, 1766, Mary Filley. 

CHILDREN. 



I. Samuel, b. Goshen, Feb. 21, 1762 ; bap. Tor., Dec. 31, 1769. 

II. Mary, bap. Tor., Dec. 31, 1769 ; d. W., July 15, 1783. 

III. Josiah, b. Dec. 11, 1767 ; bap. Tor., Dec. 31, 1769. 

IV. Jerusha, bap. Norfolk, June 2, 1770. 
V. Jemima, b. Ap. 19, 1771. ' 

VI. Lent, b. May 12, 1773 ; m. Nov. 16, 1798, Lucy Ives. 

VII. Jercsha, b. Feb. 7, 1776. 
VIII. Stlvanos, b. July 3, 1778 ; removed to Vernon, N. Y. 

IX. Ithamar, b. Feb. 26, 1781. 



PIONEER SETTLERS. 39 

Loammi Mott, son of Adam, junior, married, April 18, 1795, Polly^ 
daughter of Samuel Clark, of Winchester, and moved with his father-in- 
law, about 1800, to Stockbridge, Mass. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Merritt, b. Jan. 3, 1796. 
II. Willard, b. June 28, 1800. 
III. Lodema, b. Eeb. 3, 1803, at Stockbridge, Mass. 

Ira Mott, son of Adam, junior, owned land on the Brooks Street 
Road in 1784, and on Blue Street in 1788. 



The foregoing list comprises all the pioneers ami their families who 
settled in the township before the survey and allotment in 1758, of whom 
we have any record or tradition, except Moses Miller and Joshua 
Merrills, who for a short period owned land on Hall Meadow, and in 
their deed conveying away the. same, are named of Winchester. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PIONEER SETTLERS. 

The Motts and Prestons seem to have been the only continuous resi- 
dents of the town up to the division of lands in 1758, and for nearly three 
years afterwards. 

William Filley, the next settler, called in the deed "late of Tor- 
rington, now of Winchester," bought in 1761, seventy acres of land on 
Hall Meadow, south of Rufus Drake's, which included the land and house 
previously occupied by Caleb Beach, the first settler. He married in 
Torrington, June 11, or 13, 1759, Dinah Preston, of Winchester. He 
was drowned in a deep pool, called the tub, in the west branch, August 
3, 1774, aged 39. 

He was son of William Filley, of Torrington, whose widow, Abia, 
married Joel Beach. His brothers and sisters, who inherited his estate, 
were Abraham, Remembrance, Abia, wife of Adam Mott, Jr., Mary, 
wife of John Curtis, of Torrington and Marcy. 

Deacon Abraham Filley, inherited a portion of his brother Wil- 
liam's estate and resided in the town most of his life. In 1772 his home- 
stead was a part of the Col. Ozias Bronson farm. In 1774 he was of 
New Hartford, whence he removed to Winsted and had charge of Doolit- 
tle's mill ; and afterwards lived and died in Old Winchester. He is said to 
have made a wooden clock with a pen-knife. In his later years he be- 
came a maniac, and was confined in a detached building. He and his 
wife Mary owned the convenant in Torrington church, June 6, 1762, 
and were admitted to full communion November 27, 1768. His children 
were : 

I. Isaac, baptized in Torrington June 6, 1762. 
II. Jesse, " " Sept. 9, 1764. 

III. Levi, " " May 31, 1767; was taxed from 1789 to 1802; 

residence not known. 

IV. Uhoda, baptized in Torrington, April 9, 1769. 
V. Roger, " in Winchester, May 25, 1771. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 41 

Remembrance Fillet, baptized, Torrington, August 11, 1754;* in- 
herited in 1774 a portion of his brother William's estate, which he ex- 
changed for other lands. Before 1787 he lived on Bine Street, nearly 
one and a half miles north of Torrington line ; and afterwards in Hall 
Meadow, near Rufus Drake's. He served in the revolutionary war, and 
in his old age became a pauper. 

He married, August 20, 1774, Anna Cyrena Gleason, who was proba- 
bly divorced from him, and afterward became second wife of Adam Mott, 
Jr. He married (-^d), December 28, 1783, Hannah Hubbard. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE : 

I. William, b. May 2, 1775. 
II. Akdnah, b. February 23, 1777. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE : 

III. Charlotte, b. February 28, 1786. 

IV. Abigail, b April 24, 1788, 
V. Hannah, b. June 25, 1790. 

Thomas Hosmer, Jr., son of Thomas Hosmer, Esq., of Hartford, one 
of the original proprietors, came into the town soon after 17(11, and set- 
tled on the farm now owned by Abel S. Wetmore, which, after improving 
until 1771, he sold to Samuel Wetmore, Jr., of Middletown. His dwel- 
ling is supposed to have been on the Old South Coventry road, near the 
house named to widow Blake on the engraved map of the town. He 
was a leading man in the township and identified with all measures for 
its improvement during his residence. He sold out and removed to 
Canaan, in 1771, the year of the incorporation of the town. 

It is noteworthy that he was the only known descendant of an origi- 
nal proprietor who ever settled on an ancestral lot; and that not one of 
the original proprietors ever occupied his land. 

No record of Mr. Hosmer's family is found, except his (probable) 
second marriage (March 2, 1774) to Hannah Averet. 

Cornelius Merry, of Hartford, is grantee in a deed of January 14, 
1762, conveying to him the John Pantry lot, first division, the western 
half of which became the Robert McEwen farm, now owned by Manns 
Munsill ; and the eastern half, on which his dwelling stood, on the Old 
South Coventry road, near Hurlbut Cemetery, became the property of 
.John Hills. In a deed of 1770 he is named of Hartland. 

John Smith, Jr., of Derby, is grantee in a deed of 1763, and John 
Smith, of Winchester, in another of 1754. He lived adjoining the Ebe- 

*Son of William Filley, who, with his wife Abiah, joined the church in Torrington, 
July 17, 1754. 

6 



42 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

nezer and Joseph Preston lot, near the Torrington line, until 1771, when 
his name disappears. 

David Austin's name first appears as grantee in a deed from Cor- 
nelius Merry, of 1764, in which he is described as of Winchester. He 
probably came from Suffield. For thirty years or more he was perhaps 
the most prominent and enterprising citizen of the town. His first resi- 
dence was on the Pantry lot above mentioned. In 1709 he purchased 
the Ensign lot, extending east and south from the outlet of the Long 
Pond so far as to embrace the pond stream and all the village of Wiusted 
between Lake Street Bridge and Clifton Mill, a region then literally a 
howling wilderness, unapproached by roads and nearly unapproachable 
by reason of its jagged mountain ridges and heavy growth of timber, 
shrubs, and brambles. In 1771, he opened a cart-path through the forest, 
down to Sucker brook, and thence over the hills west of the Pond to its 
outlet, by which he conveyed the materials for the first grist mill in the 
town. This mill, and a saw-mill contiguous, were erected at the turn of 
Lake Street near the summit of the hill. The mill stood where the 
road now runs, a little northeastward of the Henry Spring Company's 
shop ; the road as first opened running down the hill close to the old 
white dwelling now known as the Factory House. The water of the 
lake was raised some three feet above its natural level, by a frail dam of 
hemlock logs and plank, about three rods south of the present causeway, 
and let out by a new channel through a bulk head — the decayed parts of 
which are still to be seen in their place — and conveyed across the road 
nearly opposite the old stone-chimney mill-house and thence on the east 
side to the junction of Rockwell and Lake streets, and then again turned 
across Lake street and poured on the wheel of the mill. 

This mil] was, for about twenty years, the eastern terminus of civilized 
habitation towards Mad River valley. Mr. Austin's first residence in 
Wiusted was in a log house nearest to the pond outlet. He subsequently 
built the stone-chimneyed lean-to house now known as the mill-house 
already mentioned. In one of the rooms he kept a small store of goods, 
at the same time personally attending his mill and saw-mill and his other 
concerns. A contemporary says of him : " The Deacon* commonly 
tended his own mill. In times of drought, when other mills foiled, he 
ran his day and night, and had so disciplined himself that he would turn a 
grist into the hopper, lie down to sleep on a bench, with his old turnip 
watch ticking at his head and wake at the precise moment when the last 
kernel was running out." 

*He was chosen first deacon of the Congregational Church, on Wallen's Hill (An- 
cient Winsted) in 1785. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 43 

It seems passing strange that with such results attained and with a sure 
prospect of increasing wealth and ease, a man of his advanced age should 
desire to renew his pioneer life on another field. He was induced by 
crafty misrepresentations to exchange his Winsted property, now worth 
hundreds of thousands, for wild kinds in the State of Vermont which he 
had never seen, and which proved to be nearly worthless. He closed the 
bargain in 1796 and removed with all his family to Watertown, Vermont, 
where he spent his remaining days in straightened circumstances. His 
name appears in the records of the town as one of its prominent officers 
and efficient agents during the revolutionary period and his subsequent 
residence. His wife was a help-meet for such a man — industrious, thrifty, 
and prudent. Their hospitality was characteristic of the hard times in which 
they lived. The apples handed round to visitors were divided into halves 
or quarters, according to their size. A venerable citizen who, were he 
living, would be a hundred years old, once told me of his working the 
Deacon's saw-mill and living in his family when a young man and about 
to be married. On leaving, Madam Austin presented him with a com- 
plete assortment of garden seeds of her own raising, with the injunction 
thereafter to save his own seeds, and never to come to her for more, as she 
never gave to any person a second time. 

CHILDREN OF DAVID AND MARY AUSTIN. 

I. David, b. Aug. 5, 1761. 

II. Daniel, b. Mch. 25, 1764 ; d. Oct. 13, 1775. 

III. Mart, b. July 8, 1766. 

IV. Ruth, b. Mch. 16, 1769. 

V. Asa, b. May 24, 1772 ; d. Feb. 12, 1776. 

VI. Daniel Harmon, b. Feb. 2, 1778. 
VII. Asa, b. May 7, 1781 ; d. Jan. 23, 1785. 

VIII. Phebe, b. Oct. 4, 1783. 

David Austin, junior, built and resided in the house adjoining the 
pond outlet. He married, September 30, 1782, Sarah Adkins. He 
moved to Vermont with his father. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sarah, b. Feb. 22, 1785. 

II. Betsey, b. Dec. 7, 1786. 

III. Asa, b. Aug. 12, 1788. 

IV. David, b. July 16, 1791. 

V. Orin, b. May 1, 1793. 
VI. Patty, b. May 13, 1795. 

Benoni Hills, 1 born in Suffield in 1701 ; removed to Durham in 



44 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

1724-5; to Goshen about 1740; afterwards to Torrington, and finally 
to Winchester, where he died, " ripe for heaven," June 24, 1793, in his 
ninety-second year. Several years before his death he selected two 
rough stones of Mica Slate, and shaping them to his liking, engraved in 
rude letters on one of them " Benoni Hills, this is my house," and on the 
other, "O eternity, death is come," to which is added, "June 24, 1793, 
B. II. aet. 93." Working at these stones \v;is the special enjoyment of his 
leisure hours. He brought them with him from Torrington, and gave 
special directions to have them placed over his grave, where they now 
stand, in the old Winchester burying ground. He married, December 
19, 1723. His wife, b. June 3, 1700; died October 21, 177G. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hannah, b. Sufficld, Oct. 5, 1724; m. — Wilson; died Tor., March 29, 
1812. 
II. Zimri, b. Durham, Dec. 16, 1725; d. Goshen, June4, 1760. 

III. Beriah, b. D., Aug. 31, 1727. 

IV. Medad, b. D., Ap. 27, 1729 ; d. Ap. 9, 1808. 
V. Mart, b. D., Jan. 1, 1731 ; d. Jan. 28, 1732. 

VI. John, b. D., Dec. 13, 1732; d. Charlotte, Vt, March 15, 1808. 

VII. Mart, b. D., Sept. 25, 1734; m. Epaphras Loomis. 
VIII. Seth, b. D., Sept. 13, 1736. 
IX. Rachel, b. D., July 8, 1739 ; m. Dr. Joel Soper ; d. Augusta, N. Y., Jan. 

7, 1832. 
X. Bela, b. Goshen, Aug. 24, 1741 ; d. May 29, 1756. 

XI. Ann, b. G., June 11, 1743; m. Luman Beach; d. Norfolk, Jan. 22 

1777. 

Seth Hills " of Winchester," is grantee in a deed of October 9, 
1765, conveying to him fifty acres bordering on Torrington, in the third 
tier, first division, which he had probably occupied earlier. 

Mr. Hills was first deacon of the church, and first representative of the 
town ; a man of hardy constitution, indomitable energy, sound, good 
sense, and sincere piety ; his integrity without a stain. He served as 
Wagon Master in the Saratoga campaign ; was present at Burgoyne's 
surrender, and assisted in clearing the field of the dead and wounded 
when the battle was ended. 

He sold out his homestead in 1798, and in the winter of 1798 went to 
Vernon, Oneida Co., N. Y., then without a white inhabitant, save two or 
three wild went with him. where he cut down four acres of the heavy 
forest, on which to build his future home, and in the following autumn, 
with the assistance of his son Ira, then a lad of sixteen, burned, cleared, 
and fitted it for seed. He removed his family in the winter of 1799, and 
with the beginning of a new century, at the age of sixty-four, began the 
settlement of a new puritan town. His former neighbors, to the number 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



45 



of Dearly forty families, rallied around him, and laid the foundation deep 
and strong. A church was soon organized, made up mainly of Win- 
chester members, of which Mr. Hills, Levi Bronson, and Samuel 
McEwen, all Winchester men, were the first deacons. 

He married, November — , 17G0, Abigail Soper. He died, Vernon, 
N. Y., June 3, 1826, aged nearly ninety years. 

CHILDREN. 



I. Statira, 3 b. July 6, 1762; m. Mch. 30, 1780— first, John Marshall of Tor 

Kington ; second, Andrew Everitt, 1799. 
II. Jesse, 3 b. May 17, 1764 ; m. Jan. 9, 1790, Mary Wheeler. 

III. Elisha, 3 b. May 8, 1766; d. June 11, 17G6 

IV. Eusha, 3 ' b. Dec. 9, 1769. 
V. Candace, 3 b. June 1, 1772. 

VI. Hannah, 3 b. May 19, 1776. 



VII. Skth, 3 
VIII. Ira, 3 



b. Ap. 20, 1779. 
b. June 22, 1788. 



Captain John Hills is named of Winchester, December C, 177f>, and 
doubtless came in earlier. He lived in a house that stood in or adjoining 
the Ilurlbut Cemetery. He was a gunsmith by trade, and his shop stood 
near his house. He sold his homestead to James Atkins in 1781, and 
afterwards removed to Charlotte, Vt., where lie died March 15, L808, 
aged seventy-six. He was great grandfather of Deacon Abel S. Wet- 
more, now a resident of this town. He and his wife Jerusha, had 



I. Jerusha, 3 

II. Lorrain Lewis, 3 

III. Zimri, 3 

IV. Esther 3 (twin), 
V. John 3 (twin), 

VI. Lorrain, 3 
VII. Cearaman (dau.), 
VIII. Olive, 3 

IX. Lewis, 3 
X. Roger, 3 



CHILDREN. 

b. Nov. 26, 1755 ; m. May 12, 1774, Abel Wetmore 

d. May 1, 1780. 
b. Feb. 6, 1758; d. Oct. 14, 1763. 
b. Oct. 2, 1762 ; m. Mille Catlin, Jan. 17, 1782. 
b. .June 1, 1766. 

b. June 1, 1766; d. July 21, 1766. 
b. May .30, 1768 ; d. Mch. 7, 1772. 
I). Oct, 5, 1770. 
b. July 23, 1773. 
b. Sept. 8, 1775. 
b. Jan. 9, 1779; d. Oct, 1, 1780. 



Bkriah Hills came into the town after 17(59, and lived on Torring- 
ton line on the east side of the road, in the third tier, second division, 
running north from Fyler's. He was lor several years appointed "to 
read the psalm" in (lie old meeting house, and died March 25, 1778, in 
his lifty-second year. His wife Mary survived him. Their 



46 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN WERE : 

I. Mart, 3 bap. in Torrington, Mch. 20, 1748. 
II. Benoni, 3 " " Dec. 24, 1749. 

III. Lois, 3 " " Feb. 2, 1751-2. 

IV. Chamkry, 3 " " Feb. 17, 1754; m. Lois Grant. 
V. Bela, 3 " " Aug. 22, 1756. 

VI. Roger Eno, 3 " " Mch. 4, 1759. 

VII. Zimri, 3 " " Ap. 23, 1763. 

VIII. Huldah, 3 " " Aug., 1767. 

Medad Hills of Goshen, third sou of Benoni, a gunsmith, who made 
muskets for the state during the Revolution, was a large landowner in 
Winchester, and resided at one period in the Norris Coe house. He had 
a son, Hewitt, who came into the town in 1788, and became one of its 
most prominent citizens. He will be spoken of hereafter. 

Jesse Hills, son of Deacon Seth, lived on the farm recently occupied 
by Samuel Hnrlbut second, which he sold to Elijah Blake in 1798, and 
removed to Windham, Green Co., N. Y., and afterwards to Vernon, 
N. Y., and a few years later to Kirtland, Lake Co., O., where he died 
April, 1841, aged 81. He had a second wife. 

CHILDREN by first wife. 

I. Laura, b. Oct. 14, 1790; m. Benj. D. Allen. 
II. Holdah, b. Jan. 19, 1793; m. Augustus Alten. 
III. Lucy, b. Sept. 11, 1795; m. Ira Brown. 

Chauncey Hills, second son of Beriah, "a noted stammerer," lived 
in his father's homestead bordering on Torrington line, until about 1802, 
when he sold out to Luke Case and William Bunnell, and removed to 
Litchfield, Herkimer Co., N. Y. 

Benoni Hills, oldest son of Beriah, had no real estate during the 
life of his father. One of his daughters married Chauncey Humphrey. 
He married, October 28, 1773, Elizabeth Agard, and had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Theodosia, b. Feb. 1, 1775. 
II. Elizabeth, b. Oct. 20, 1776. 
III. Amanda, b. Tor., June 18, 1780; bap. Aug. 27, 1780. 

Setii Hills and Ira Hills, third and fourth sons of Deacon Seth, 
moved with their father to Vernon, N. Y. To the hitter, the compiler is 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 47 

indebted for much valuable information respecting the family, and respect- 
ing Vernon families generally which originated in Winchester. 

The Hills' in a body seem to have pulled up stakes and abandoned the 
town at the great exodus about 1800. Not a single descendant of Benoni 
Hills' bearing the name has lived in the town for several years. Descend- 
ants in the female line are not unfrequent. 

Deacon Abel S. Wetmore is descended from Benoni 1 in the fifth 
generation. 

In 1751 Captain Josiah Avered, of Woodbury, (Bethlem Society) 
became the owner of undivided lands in Winchester, and was soon after 
disabled by the kick of a horse, and confined to his bed until his death in 
1765. His property being almost exhausted during his protracted con- 
finement, his widow, Mrs. Hannah (Hinmau) Avered, or Everett, as now 
spelled, soon after his death removed with her aged mother and seven 
children to the wilds of Winchester, while there were as yet but three 
families in the central part of the old society. They stayed in a house on 
the farm now owned by Deacon Abel S. Wetmore, until a clearing had 
been made and a house erected on their land about two miles north of the 
center, on the old South Country road, as it then ran toward Norfolk. 
This house is the oldest now standing in the town.* It has never been 
painted, and had not, when built, an iron hinge or latch on any of its 
doors. 

Here this energetic and godly woman reared her young family, and so 
discharged the duties of a mother and revolutionary matron, that her chil- 
dren and fellow-townsmen might well rise up and call her blessed. Her 
aged grand-daughter, Mrs. Swift, now of New York, has permitted the 
copying from her reminiscences the following account of the experiences 
of the pioneer family : 

" It is evident that my grand-mother removed from Bethlem in 
1765; and with her children, came also her mother, Mrs. Mary Noble 
Hinman, who died in Winchester, at 92 years of age. The date of her 
death is not known. Her grave is on the left hand of her daughter's, as 
you face the head-stone of the latter. She is said to have been born in 
Northampton, and to have removed to old Milford at the age of 16, and 
that soon afterward, on a Sabbath morning, she and her sister went into 
the forest to collect thorns with which to dress themselves in order to at- 
tend church at New Haven. This sister was ancestress of Presi- 
dent Day. 

" During the severe winters of that period, the hungry wolves howled in 
the little enclosure of my grand-mother's cottage during the nights, and 



*It was crushed to the ground by the weight of snow in the winter of 1870-71. 



48 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

were seen to jump over the fence when any one opened the door. Many 
are the incidents related in my childish ears, of the sufferings of the 
family during the revolutionary war, particularly in the ' hard winter ' 
of '83. 

" No grinding could be done at the mill — snow fell every other day for 
six weeks — and the wind and drifting seemed only a continuation of the 
storm ! Grain and corn were boiled for family use. Wood was drawn 
on the tops of the drifts, on a hand-sled by my Uncle Andrew (the 
youngest son) on snow shoes, and received by his sisters through a win- 
dow at the back of the house. My Uncle Noble at this period was a 
chaplain in the army, and my father (Josiah), also away getting his pro- 
fession, and afterwards in command of a company on the Canada 
frontier. 

" During the hard winter a piece of check-woolen for soldiers' shirts was 
put into the loom, but it was impossible to weave it on account of the 
cold ; so it was all wound out in balls, then doubled (one thread white 
and the other blue) and twisted on the ' great wheel ' ; and thus prepared, 
my grand-mother and her four daughters sat in a circle, — enclosed by 
blankets suspended from the joists over head around the high fire-place — 
am! knitted the yarn into stockings for the army. One night during 
these times, my grand-mother and her children sat up amid the howlings 
of the winter blasts, in consultation whether they should break up house- 
keeping and each take care of themselves. After retiring and passing 
the remaining night sleepless, grand-mother arose in the morning, and 
told her family that 'by the help of God they would keep together.' 

" When she was 84 years old, she often rode on horseback from her 
home two miles to the village, went to the store, then stopped at my 
father's to rest, and then rode home alone. She was 89 at her death. 

" During the war my Aunt Diana, one Monday morning, received an 
invitation to a wedding just one week from that evening; she must, there- 
fore, have a ' new gown.' The only store in the town was south of the 
burying-ground, near Torrington line, nearly four miles distant. My 
grand-mother rode over the hills to the store, where she found a pattern of 
chintz, which she could have for eleven and a half yards of checked 
woollen shining for soldier's wear ; hut, could not buy it with * continen- 
tal bills.' The old lady returned about one hour before ' sundown,' and 
told her story. ' We had,' says my aunt, 4 wool, cards, wheel, net, loom, 
and blue dye all in the house, but not a thread of yarn. Thai night, be- 
fore 1 went to bed, 1 carded, spun, washed, and put into the dye-tub, one 
run of yarn, and so the work went on ; the cloth was wove, the 
' gown ' pattern purchased, made up, and worn to the wedding at the 
week's end. I have often seen this gown ; and in 1843 1 slept under a 
bed-quilt, made principally from its remains, in a good state of preserva- 
tion. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS 49 

" On another occassion, years afterwards, (within my own memory) 
this Aiuif Diana, being engaged at her cheese-tub, heard the cry of a 
chicken at the open door ; looking out, she perceived a large hen-hawk 
pounced on a poor fowl, her back towards her. With a long cheese knife in 
her hand she sprang lightly forward and sat down over the hawk, took 
him by the head and, with her knife, cut it off. ' He acted as if he felt 
ashamed when T was doing it,' she said, when she told me the story. 
Often have I played with its great talons. 

" Aunt Diana, — afterwards wife of Deacon Theophilus Humphrey, of 
Canton — was almost 91 years old at her death, December 11.1843. 
She was remarkable for her piety and talents — was educated beyond 
what was common at that early period — had spent three years at school 
in New London." 

Richard Everitt, one of the founders of Dedham, Massachusetts, had 
a son. Israel, 3 born July 14, 1657 ; who had a son, Josiah, :) born August 
3, 1768; who had a son, Josiah, 4 born August 5, 1710, at Guilford, Con- 
necticut ; who married Hannah Noble Hinman. He died in Bethlem ; 
will proved March 19, 1765. She died in Winchester, May 19, 1803, 
aged 88. 

CHILDREN : 

T. Elihu, 5 b. March, 5, 1741, d. October 25, 1759. 

II. Mary, 6 b. February 13, 1743; d. March 9, 1760. 

III. Aaron, 6 b. April 3, 1745; d. December 4, 1761. 

IV. Rev. Noble, 6 b. March 3, 1747. 

V. Doct. Josiah, 5 b. February 27, 1749. 

VI. Hannah, 6 b. January 1, 1751 ; m. March 2, 1774, Thomas Hosmer. 

VII. Diana, 6 b. February 14, 1753; d. December 11, 1843; m. Dea. 

Theophilus Humphrey. 
VIII. Andrew, 6 b. July 30, 1755 ; ) Twins d. Jan. 31, 1835. 

IX. Mabel, 5 b. " " " ) d. February 24, 1804 ; m. May 

30, 1776, Daniel Corbin. 
X. Amelia, 6 b. May 14, 1757; d. October 22, 1843; m. May 15, 1782, 

Doct. Sol. Everitt. 

Rev. Noble Everitt, graduated at Yale, in 1775, served as a chap- 
lain in the revolutionary army, afterwards settled in the ministry at Ware- 
ham, Massachusetts, and died in the discharge of his pastoral duties De- 
cember 30, 1819. 

Doctor Josiah EvEritt, 5 married December 5, 1776, Esther Hin- 
man. She died September 30, 1783, in her 30th year. He married (2d) 
February 23, 1785, Nelly, daughter of Captain Samuel Pease, of Enfield, 
Connecticut; born December 23,1762; she died, November 2,1791; 

7 



50 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

and he married, (3d) September 26, 1794, Hannah Stanley, who died, 
June 27, 1826. He died, February 5, 1829, aged 80. He studied 
medicine with Doctors Bird, of Bethlem, and Hall, of Woodbury, and 
settled in Winchester as a physician, living first in the store building, re- 
cently torn down, that stood in front of Mr. Theron Brouson's new store 
at Winchester centre, and afterwards, through his remaining life, in the 
house now occupied by his son, Noble J. Everitt, a quarter of a mile south 
of the centre. 

He served as captain of a company of Connecticut troops in the 
Northern army in the first year of the revolutionary war. 

CHILDREN OP DOCTOR JOSIAH 5 AND NELLY (PEASE) EVERITT. 

I. Nelly Minerva, 6 b. July 30, 1786; m. Doct. Zepheniah Swift. 
II. Josiah Noble/ b. December 10, 1788; m. Koxy L. Cook, daughter 

of Elisha Cook, Esq. 

III. Chester P., 6 b. November 12, 1790 ; d. April 24, 1807. 

CHIDREN OF DOCTOR JOSIAH 4 AND HANNAH (STANLEY) EVERITT. 

IV. Hannah B., 6 b. June 7, 1798; m. March 8, 1825, Rev. Henry 

Bushnell. 
V. Mart, 6 b. December 29, 1799 ; d. May 29, 1807. 

Andrew Everitt, 5 married, May 18, 1780, Abigail North. She 
died, June 2, 1795, aged 31 ; and he married (2d), December 26, 1799, 
Statira, daughter of Deacon Seth Hills, and widow of John Marshall. 
He resided with his mother in the old homestead until her decease, and 
continued to own and occupy it until 1809, when he sold it, and removed 
to Vernon, New York, where he died. 

CHILDREN OF ANDREW 5 AND ABIGAIL (NORTH) EVERITT. 

I. Elihu," b. December 16, 1780; d. September 11, 1781. 

II. Elihu, 6 b. January 21, 1783; m. Roxy, daughter of John 
Marshall. 

III. Andrew Hinman, 6 b. October 27, 1788; d. March 9, 1791. 

CHILDREN OF ANDREW 5 AND STATIRA (HILLS) EVERITT. 

IV. Andrew Hinman, 6 b. November 26, 1800. 

V. Truman, 6 b. December 26, 1801 ; d. October 9, 1804. 

VI. Elisha, 6 b. February 15, 1805. 

Jonathan Coe, & of Torrington, purchased 100 acres of land at 
the south end of the third tier, first division, lying immediately north 
of the farm of Deacon Seth Hills, in 1764, which remained in 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 51 

his family ninety-nine years. In 1765 he conveyed one half of this 
lot to his son Oliver, and the other half to Ins son Robert. He 
was born in Durham, Connecticut, about 1710; son of Robert 1 and Bar- 
bara (Parmele) Coe ; grand-son of John :, and Mary (Hawley) Coe ; 
great-grand-son of Robert 9 and Coe; and great-great-grandson 

of Robert' Coe, who was born in Suflfolkshire, England, in 1596, and 
came to New England with his wife Anna, in 1634; settling successively 
in Watertown, Massachusetts ; Wethersfield and Stamford, Connecticut ; 
and in Hempstead, Newtown, and Jamaica, Long Island. He married in 
Durham, September 23, 1737, Elizabeth Elmer, and was one of the first 
settlers of Torrington. They came to Winchester when old. She died 
June 28, 1794, aged 84 ; he died April 23, 1795, aged 84. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Oliver, 6 b. in Torrington, September 3, 1738. 
II. Robert, b. in " March 28, 1740. 

III. Jonathan, 6 b. in " August 20, 1742; m. April 15, 1767, Eunice 

Cook; shed. April 12, 1818; he d. August 21, !824. 

IV. Elizabeth, 6 b. in Torrington, September 5, 1743. 
V. Jerusha, 6 b. in " March 27, 1746. 

VI. Martha, 6 b. in " January 5, 1748-9. 

VII. Ebenezer, 6 b. in " December, 2, 1750; d. in Torrington, Octo 

her 18, 1784. 
VIII. Lucretia, 6 b. in " Jane 9, 1755; m. March 18, 1776, Daniel 

Murray, she d. June 1792. 

Olivkr Coe, 6 moved on to the south half of the above lot at or soon 
after the date of his deed and occupied the same until his death, Decem- 
ber 31, 1775, at the age of 37. He served in the continental army under 
Captain Sedgwick, and Colonel Hinman, at Ticonderoga, in 1775; was 
discharged November 20th; was taken sick on his way home near Lake 
George; procured a horse on which he readied home November 28th; 
and was confined to his bed with the camp or typhoid fever, until his 
death, five weeks afterward. He left a widow and six children, from 
three to thirteen years old, all of whom were sick with the same disease. 
These facts are gathered from a memorial to the assembly by his admin- 
istrator, asking a reimbursement of the expenses of his sickness and death 
on which a grant was allowed of £14 6s. He married, October 7, 1762, 
Mary Agard, of Torrington. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abner, 7 b. in Torrington, April 12, 1763; m. May 20, 1784, and had 
Wealthy, b. Oct. 16, 1785 ; moved to Burk, Vt., bad live mure children ; 
and d. Aug. 15, 1846. 
II. Oliver, 7 b. November 7, 1764. 



52 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

III. Mary, 1 b. September 2, 1766; d. September 13, 1766. 

IV. Justus,? b. September 1, 1767; m. 1789, Kuth Bailey; tbey moved to 

Jewett, N. Y., where she d. March 4, 1838 ; and he in June 1850. 
V. Mary,? b. December 6, 1769 ; m. Doctor Abraham Camp, of Mt. Mor- 

ris, N. Y. ; shed. 1846. 

VI. Job,? b. April 22, 1772. 

VII. James, 7 b. May 31, 1774. 

Robert Coe, 6 settled on the north half of the hundred acre lot afore- 
said, and remained until 1768, when he sold out to his brother, Jonathan 
Coe, Jr. He afterwards owned and lived on the Levi Bronson farm 
near the southeast corner of Norfolk, until 1788, when he removed to 
Cooperstown, New York. He married, December 26, 1764, Chloe 
Thrall. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Joel, 7 b. May 4, 1765. 

II. Armanda, 7 (son), b. July 3, 1767. 

III. Abijah, 7 b. October 23, 1769. 

IV. Ariel, 7 b. October 31, 1772. 

V. Roswell, 7 b. February 5, 1780. 

Jonathan Coe, Jr., 6 known as Ensign Jonathan Coe, moved with his 
father and mother in 1768 on the farm until then occupied by Robert 
Coe, where Jonathan Coe, senior, died. He removed to Winsted in 1796 
and resided until near his death in the house afterward occupied by Col. 
N. D. Coe. He married, April 15, 1767, Eunice Cook. She died April 
12, 1818; he died August 1, 1824. 

Ensign Coe may be considered the father of the Methodist denomina- 
tion in the town ; having been perhaps the earliest convert and a con- 
sistent and earnest supporter of the order through his life. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lovina, 7 b. February 11, 1768; m. October 26, 1788, Asahel Miller. 

II. Jonathan, 7 b. March 23, 1770. 

III. Eunice, 7 b. March 27, 1772 ; m. January 20, 1793, Abiel Loomis. 

IV. Roger, 7 b. July 27, 1774, (see 1795). 

V. Rhoda, 7 b. March 27, 1777 ; m. Eben Woodruff, of Rarkhamsted. 

VI. Huldah, 7 b. January 3, 1779 ; m. May 16, 1796, Major Lloyd Andrews. 

VII. David, 7 b. February 11, 1781. 

VIII. Daniel, 7 b. February 2, 1783. 
IX. Eben, 7 b. July 9, 1785. 

Oliver Coe, Jr., 7 owned and lived on the Henry Drake farm, near 
Torrington line, in the second tier, first division, from 1805 to 1814, when 
he moved to Hudson, Ohio, and died there August 14, 1825, aged 61. 



'*> Ji*t 




C Bu« B 




'^'yyay^^^z [0-L, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 53 

He served on several tours of duty in the revolutionary war, and on the 
breaking out of the Indian war again enlisted for three years, ami served 
in General Harmer's campaign down the Ohio, and was one of seven sur- 
vivors of Col. Harden's detachment which was cut off by the Indians on 
the headwaters of the Scioto in the fall of 1791. He also served as 
military guard of the surveying party that surveyed the Ohio Company's 
purchase; after which he returned to the place of his nativity and be- 
came a thrifty and wealthy farmer, enjoying in ;i high degree the respeel 
and confidence of the communities in which he lived. He married, De- 
cember I, 1791, Sarah Marshall, daughter of Thomas. He married (2d), 
Chloe Spencer, daughter of Thomas. He died in Hudson, Ohio, August 
14, 1825. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Norris, 8 b. May 1, 1792; m. March 10, 1814, Chloe Hubbell, b. Jan- 
uary 25, 1788, daughter of Silliman Hubbell. 
II. Demas, 8 b. January 11, 1794; m. April 15, 1819, Eliza Ward. He d. 
December 1, 1853. 
III. Artemisia, 8 b. December 5, 1799 ; m. 1815, George Chase. 

Jonathan Coe, Jr., 7 married, October 3, 1792, Charlotte Spencer, 
daughter of Thomas. She died July 15, 1842, aged 70. He married 
(2d), Huldah (Speucer) Wetmore, widow of John Wetmore, 2d, and sis- 
ter of his first wife. She died July 10, 1845 ; and he married (3d), No- 
vember 30, 1848, Mrs. Betsey (Miller) Wetmore, of Wolcottville. He 
died May 31, 1849 ; she died September 18, 1850, aged 80. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Jehial, 8 b. October 5, 1794. 

II. Chloe, 8 b. February 24, 1797 ; m. Chauncy Eggleston. 

III. Wealthy, 8 b. March 1, 1799; m. May 10, 1820, Nelson Wilson ; she d. 

February 2, 1845. 

IV. Charlotte, 8 b. August 24, 1801 ; d. February 15, 1814. 
V. Asahel, 8 b. April 4, 1804. 

VI. Sylvia, 8 b. August 12, 1806; m. September 20, 1825, Samuel Boyd. 
VII. Huldah, 8 b. April 6, 1809; m. October 13, 1834, Erastus Sterling 

Woodford; she d. April 18, 1859. 
VIII. Jane, 8 b. August 14, 1812; m. October 13, 1834, Henry Hinsdale: 

she d. October 5, 1839 ; he d. October 14, 184f>. 
IX. Ruth, 8 b. April 5, 1814; m. November 30, 1837, Abel A. Smith; he 

d. May 11, 1841 ; she d. April 18, 1847, childless. 

David Coe, 7 married, March 15, 1804, Prudence Ward. She died 
February 23, 1823, aged 42; he married (2d), Esther Wright. He died 
June 12, 1834. 



54 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 
I. Samuel Ward, 8 b. June 10,1805; m. August 16, 1831, Abigail B. San 
ford; she died December 23, 1838 ; lie married (2d), May 10, 1843, Julia 
M. Starks. In company with Luman Hubbell and E. S. Woodford, he 
engaged in trade at Winsted about 1830, and continued the business un- 
til his death, September 20, 1868, and was largely identified with the 
public interests of the town, filling with ability many offices of trust and 
honor. He was Justice of the Peace from about 1830 to the time of his 
death; Town Clerk from 1833 to 1837, and from 1841 to 1851 ; Judge 
of Probate from 1843 to 1850; State Senator in 1850. He was also a 
faithful member and office-bearer of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
from early manhood. As a citizen, public spirited and a faithful worker 
in the Temperance and Anti-Slavery causes ; as a neighbor, kind and 
obliging — especially to the sick and dying. Social in disposition, re- 
spected and beloved in life, and lamented in death. Children by .first 
wife; 1. Charles Betts, 9 b. January 15, 1838; 2. David Ward, 9 b. 
May 11, 1836. By second wife : 3. Francis Abby, 9 b. June 26, 1842 ; 
4. Wilbur Fisk, 9 b. November 23, 1S44. 

II. Emert, 8 b. March 17, 1809; m. May 7, 1837, Almira Griswold ; he d. 

August 27, 1861 ; she m. (2d) March 22, 1866, Milo Burr, of Torring- 
ton. Children: 1. Sarah Jane, 9 b. March 29, 1840 ; 2. Edward Gris- 
wold, b. April 3, 1847. 

III. Sally, 8 b. June 24, 1811, m November 17, 1834, Alvin Gilbert. 

IV. David Fletcher, 8 b. June 30, 1819 ; d. September 7, 1823. 

V. Prudence, 8 daughter ol David 7 and Esther W. Coe, b. July 1, 1828; d. Sep- 

tember 11, 1829. 

Rev. Daniel Coe, 7 married, October 17, 1803, Mrs. Anna (Sweet) 
Keyes, daughter of Rev. John Sweet; she died November 29, 1818. He 
married (2d), January 20, 1820, Lucy Hall ; he died January 12, 1847. - 

CHILDREN. 

I. Caroline, 8 b. September 20, 1804; m. April 15, 1833, Wm. Currie. 

II. Clarissa Anna, s b. April 16,1807; m. December 30,1829; Shadrack 
Manchester. 

III. Louisa, 8 b. April il, 1809; m. March 14, 1836, Oliver H. 

Looinis ; he d. December 25, 1838 ; she m. (2d), September9, 1845, Chas. 
Hall. 

IV. Col. Nelson Daniel, 8 b. November 8, 1811. 
V. Rev. Jonathan, 8 b. June 1, 1815. 

VI. Rev. James Roger, 8 b. March 30, 1818. 

Eben Coe, 7 married, December 1, 1806, Eliza Kirkham ; he died Sep- 
tember 10, 1818. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julia, 8 b. August 26, 1807; m. Voorhies. 

II. Samuel Mills, 8 b. February 21, 1809; d. December 26, 1809. 

III. Eliza, 8 b. December 23, 1811 ; m. Porter, of Cleveland, Ohio. 

IV. Charles, 8 b. October 25, 1816. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 55 

Jrhial Coe, ;; married, September I, 1816, Amanda Betsey Case, born 
in Simsbury, April 28, 1797, daughter of Luke mid Betsey (Adams) Case. 
She died February 18, 1855; and he married (2d), September 25, 1856, 
Mrs. Harriet E. Sage. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Charlotte, 9 b. December 21, 1817; m. September 14, 1841, 

Lemphier B. Tuttle. 
II. Luke Cask, 9 b. June 13, 1821 ; in. July 18, 1844, Sarah June 

Andrews, and has Lillie, adopted April 7, 1855, b. August 17, 1847 ; and 
Florence Amanda, 1 " p. July 11, 1857. 

III. Spencer Wallace, 9 b. October 15, 1827; m. June 3, 1856, Carrie 

Capron, of New York; and has 1. Spencer Capron, 1 " b. April 4, 1858. 

IV. William Gilmore, 9 b. September 10, 1829; m. September 15, 1852, 

Martha A. Williams; she d. October 6, 1854, leaving a daughter 
Martha Jane, 1 " b. in Jonesville, New York, February 17, 1854; and he 
m. (2d) May 27, 1856, Jeannette T. Lee; and has Minnie Agnes, 11 b. 
October 31, 1857 ; and Alice. Lee, 1 " b. August 12, 1859* 
V. Mar v- Jane, 9 b. June 20, 1831. 

Asahel Coe, 8 married, April 26, 1826, Louisa Hale, born in Glaston- 
bury, July 31, ISOo, daughter of Ebenezer and Sarah (Cornwall) Hale; 
they removed to Pennsylvania, settling finally at Look Haven. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Anna, 9 b. in W., October 2, 1827; m. E. S. Woodford. 

II. Jonathn Hale, b. in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, March 6, 1831 ; d. May, 
1832. 
III. William Hale, 9 b. in Home, Pennsylvania, January 23, 1843. 

Col. Nelson D. Coe, ! married, February 5, 1834, Maria H. Sey- 
mour; he died November 1, 1856. 

*He died of a disease of the brain, after a loug and distressing illness, May 31, 
1872. He studied law with Hon. O. S. Seymour; was admitted to the Litchfield bar 
in 1851 ; entered into successful practice at New Britain, Connecticut ; whence here- 
turned to Winsted in 1856, where he engaged in manufacturing business as Agent of the 
Clifton Mill Company, and soon became prominently identified with the public interests 
of the community — originating our Borough Corporation and Water-works, and 
efficiently aiding all other measures of public improvement. Though not the origina- 
tor, he was the leading organizer of the Connecticut Western Railroad Company, 
and acted as its Secretary from its organization to the. time of his prostration by the 
disease that caused his death. He served in two sessions of the General Assembly, 
acquitting himself with decided ability, and wielding a large influence. He was gifted 
with a magnetism that made him a natural leader of others, and secured to him the warm 
attachment of many friends and admirers. At the centennial of the town in August, 
1871, he presided with a dignity and ability creditable alike to himself and to the com- 
munity he represented. 



56 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 

I. Lucy Ann, 9 b. November 18, 1834; m. December 24, 1857,RufusE. Holmes; 
has children: 1. Anna Louisa, b. September 17, 1860; 2. Susan 
Beecher, b October 27, 1862 ; 3. Rufus, b. April 4, 1865, d. March 16, 
1866; 4. Edward Rufus, b. March 7, 1867; 5. Ralph Winthrop, b. 
October 6, 1869. 

II. James Nelson, 9 b. October 20, 1836; m. July 19, 1857, Kate R. Goddard. 

He was Lieut, in 2d Connecticut Heavy Artillery. Children : 1. Nelson 
Daniel, 10 b. October 17, 1858; 2. Kate Goddard, 10 b. July 6, 1865 ; 3. 
Harriett Maria, 10 b. September 20, 1869. 

III. Ason, 9 b. 1838; d. same day.' 

IV. Daniel Sidney, 9 b. August, 1840. 
V. Ellen Maria, 9 b. March 31, 1845. 

Rev. Jonathan Coe, 8 married, in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Octo- 
ber 15, 1844, Sarah Wales Whitman; born March 30, 1815; she died 
September 5,1848; and he married (2d), January 1, 1850, Susan L. 
Whitman, sister of his first wife. He was a graduate of Trinity College, 
Hartford, a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and first Rec- 
tor of St. James' Church, Winsted. He died of a railroad accident at 
Athens, New York, about 1867. 

CHILDREN. 

I. James Herbert, 9 b. July 22, 1845. 

II. William Watson, 9 b. November, 1846. 

III. Harriet Whitman, 9 b. September 2, 1848 ; d. September 4, 1848. 

IV. Allen Whitman, 9 b. August 27, 1851 ; d. April, 1852. 
V. Robert HenninO; 9 b. October 1852; d. 

VI. Reginald, 9 b. July 22, 1854. 

VII. Mary Cleveland, 9 b. July 22, 1856 ; d. 1857. 

VIII. Anna Caroline, 9 b. October, 1858. 

Rev. James R. Coe," a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church ; married, October 4, 1848, Mary Cleveland; born December 23, 
1830, daughter of Charles C. and Rachel (Talcott) Cleveland. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Anna Higley, 9 b. August 10, 1849. 

II. Sarah Whitman, 9 b. January 13, 1851. 

III. George Jarvis, 9 b. May 7, 1853. 

IV. Charles Cleveland, 9 b. June 13, 1855. 

V. Mary Cleveland, 9 l>. December 17, 1857. 

Robert McEwen, a native of Dumfries, Scotland, a covenanter, who 
fought at Bothwell Brig, was apprehended by the English government, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 57 

and with others, was allowed to come to America, in the. Henry and 
Francis; he landed at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, December 18, 1685, 
and the next summer walked to Stratford, Connecticut, arriving there 
July 18, 1686, where he married. June 20, 1695, Sarah, daughter of 
Timothy Wilcoxson. He died in Stratford. February, 1 740. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John,'-' b. in Stratford, September 20, or 23, 1697. 

II. Elizabeth,'- b. " " November 7, 1699. 

III. Robert, 2 b. " " March 7, 1702. 

IV. Sarah,- b. " " November 5, 1704. 
V. Timothy, 2 b. " " April 11, 1707. 

VI. Gershom, 2 b. " " April 7, 1711 ; m. January , 1737, Martha, 

daughter of Samuel Pickett. He bought in 17G6, of David Austin, the 
farm now owned by Marcus Munsill, about a quarter of a mile .south of 
Winchester center. He was called of "Winchester," in 1773. He 
owned and occupied land next south of Sylvester Piatt's farm, until his 
death, August 31, 1794. She d. in Sangersfield, New York, in 1798, 
aged 86. 

CHILDREN OF GERSHOM 2 AND MARTHA (PICKETT) M c EWEN. 

I. Mary, 8 b. S., Apr. 1, 1738 ; m. Apr. 17, 1760, Peter Blackman. 
II. Kobrrt, 8 b. S., June — , 1743; came to Winchester soon after his father 
made the first purchase in 1766, and began to clear and improve the 
land. He married October 10, 1770, Jerusha Doolittle. She died 
December 10, 1815, aged sixty-three. In 1769 his father conveyed the 
lot to him, and he continued to own and occupy it until his death, Nov. 
17, 1816, at the age of seventy-three. He was a member,- and was con- 
stituted moderator of the Chureh at its organization in 1770, and became 
one of its deacons in 1799; was a representative in nine sessions of the 
assembly from 1781 to 1797; filled nearly every office of trust in the 
town, and performed several terms of military duty in the Revolutionary 
War. This record indicates the estimation in which he was held. He 
inherited from his covenanting ancestors rectitude, shrewdness, and 
thrift, which, when coin! lined with earnest piety, made him a strong 
pillar of the infant Church and town. He was father of Rev. Abel 
MeEwen, D.D., late of New London, deceased. 

III. Sarah, 8 b. S., Apr. — , 1747. 

IV. Samuel, 8 b. S., December, 1749; came with his father to Winchester; 

married October 7, 1773, Lois Sherman. He owned and occupied the 
Deacon Piatt farm until 1798, when he removed to Vernon, N. Y., and 
became a pioneer of that town, and one of the deacons of the Church at 
its organization. 

V. (Jershom, 3 b. S., ; married April 24, 1777, Thankful Andrews. He came 

* into the town with his father, and owned and occupied a house and laud 

north of and adjoining the homestead of Deacon Abel S. Wetmore, until 
1796, when he removed, as is believed, to Sangersfield, N. Y. 



58 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN OF ROBERT 3 AND JERTJSHA (DOOLITTLE) M c EWEN. 

I. Sarah, 4 b. February 6, 1772 ; died March 23, 1772. 

II. Sarah, 4 b. March 2, 1775; m. Solomon Rockwell, Esq. 

III. Abi, 4 1). April 8, 1777 ; m. May 29, 1800, James Beebe, Esq. 

IV. Abel, 4 b. February 13, 1780; graduate Yale College 1804; m. January 

21, 1807, Sarah Battel!, b. May 29, 1781, daughter of William Battell, 
Esq., of Tor. He died at New London, September 7, I860. She died 
March 9, 1859. He was pastor of Cong. Ch. in New London, nearly 
fifty years. 

CHILDREN OF SAMUEL 3 AND LOIS (SHERMAN) M c EWEN. 

I. Clark, 4 b. October 26, 1774. 

II. Ezra, 4 b. January 10, 1776. 

III. Hannah, 4 b. November 13, 1777. 

IV. Phebe, 4 b. April 4, 1779. 

V. Lois, 4 b. January 28, 1781. 

VI. Zenas, 4 b. March 23,1784. Living in Lisbon, Kendall Co., Illinois, in 

1863. 

CHILDREN OF GERSHOM 3 AND THANKFUL (ANDREWS) M c EWEN. 

I. Mary, 4 b. August 18, 1777. 
II. Eli, 4 b. November 30, 1778. 

CHILDREN OF REV. ABEL 4 AND SARAH (BATTELL) M'KWEN. 

I. Robert, 5 b. June 22, 1808; m. Betsy, daughter of Ebenz. Earned, b. 
May 30, 1803; grad. Yale, 1827; clergyman. 

II. Charlotte, 5 b. February 9, 1810; m. July 7, 1834, Cortland L. Latimer, 

of Norwalk, O., 1). February 8, 1810. 

CHILDREN. 

1 Lucius, 6 b. Feb. 11, 1835; d. same day. 

2. Cortland,'' 1 b. February 20, 1836; d. September 26, 1836. 

3. Cortland, 6 b. March 19, 1838.; d. May 14, 1840. 

4. Charlotte McEwen, 6 1). December 13, 1841 ; d. August 7, 1847. 

5. Abel McEwen, 6 b. July 18, 1843; d. January 15, 1853. 

6. Everton Judson, 6 b. October 14, 1848. 

III. Sarah, 5 b. May 25, 1812; m. January 5, 1838; Henry Garrett, of 

Buffalo, N.Y. ; b. August 8, 1812. He d. Feb. 9, 1849. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Sarah Battell, 6 b. December 24, 1839. 

2. Charlotte McEwen, 6 b. January 26, 1842. 

3. Anna, 6 b. February 14, 1844. 

4. Henry, 6 b. November 26, 1845; d. March 1, 1863. 

IV. William, 5 b. May 29, 1814. 

V. Ann Buckingham, 5 h. January 15, 1817 ; d. November 18, 1832. 

VI. Harriet, 5 b. September 15, 1819; d. July 18, 1832. 

VII. John Battell, 6 b. April 19, 1821 ; d. October 1, 1861, unmarried. 




J&/J0&- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 59 

Enoch Palmer from Farmington came to Winchester in 1767, and 
lived in the late homestead of Adam Mott, junior, which stood on the 
site of Noble J. Everitt's house, next north of the Robert McEwen house, 
now owned by Marcus Munsill, until 1773, when he removed to a farm 
on the old north country road, near the Wallen's Hill School-house, 
where he died in 1795. His sons Lazarus, Solomon, and Reuben, who 
resided near him in Winsted, will be hereafter adverted to. His daughter 
Mary was wife of Reuben Sweet. His wife, Jemima, died May 28, 
1790; he married (second) November 23, 1790, Elizabeth Soper. He 
died 1795, in Winsted. 



Simeon Loomis, supposed from Torrington, is named of Winchester, 
in a deed of June 29, 1767, conveying to him a part of the Salmon 
Bronson Farm, lying south of the road running west from the Wade 
Tannery, which he occupied until his death alter 1790, and which was 
afterwards owned and occupied until 1801 by Seth Griswold, who mar- 
ried Loomis' s widow. He married, November 29, 1770, Huldah Priest. 
Administration granted on his Estate in Simsbury, Probate Court, 
January 9, 1777. His widow, Huldah, married December 31, 1778, 
Seth Griswold of New Hartford. 

CHILDREN OF SIMEON AND HULDAH (PRIEST) LOOMIS. 

I. Elisha, b. August 14, 1771 ; had wife Mary, and a daughter Sabra Maria, 
b. November 14, 1804. 
II. Lois, b. August 12, 1773. 

III. Joab, b. June 2, 177"). 



Aaron Cook from Torrington purchased in 1767, and occupied 
during his life, the lot at the southeast corner of the second tier, first 
division, immediately north of the Preston reservation, and lived on 
south part of Blue Street. He died May 19, 1801, aged fifty-nine. 

CHILDREN OF AARON AND LYDIA COOK. 

I. Abigail, b. November 19, 1768. 

II. Asenath, b. April 22, 1771 ; m. May 10, 1792, Jonathan Hall. 

III. Ruth, b. March 12, 1773. 

IV. Ha.nnah, b. January 20, 1775; m. November 26, 1801, Merritt Bull. 
V. Joseph, b. December 1, 1776. 

VI. Roger, b. December 20, 1781. 

VII. Reuben, b. October 31, 1784. 

VIII. Lena Alson, b. March 25, 1796. 



gO ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Eleazer Smith had a child born in Winchester in 1768, but is 
named of Barkhamsted in a deed of June 22, 1770, conveying to him 
land at the angle of the old road to Winchester Center, north of Sylvester 
Piatt's. He built and occupied the old house recently torn down that 
stood east of the north and south road opposite the turn westward of the 
road to the center. In 1791 he sold to Thomas Spencer, junior, after 
which his name disappears. He had ten children born in the town, but 
it is not known that any of his descendants remain among us. 

CHILDREN OF ELEAZER AND MARY SMITH. 

I. Maky, b. October 2, 1768. 

II. Koxy, b. June 21, 1770. 

III. Noadiah, b. July 5, 1772. 

IV. Sarah, b. December 13, 1774. 
V. Lucina, b. August 6, 1777. 

VI. Mercy, b. June 6, 1779; d. July 1, 1779. 

VII. Dorothy, b. July 4, 1780. 

VIII. Zadoc, b. February 15, 1783. 

IX. Eleazer, b. September 10, 1785. 

X. David Williams, b. August 3, 1787.. 

Noah Gleason from Torringford bought a house and lot of John 
Smith in 1769, on the east side of Blue Street, near Torrington line, 
which he occupied until about 1776. In 1783 he bought and lived on 
the west side of Blue Street, now a part of the farm of Henry Drake. 
He afterwards lived until 1793 on Brooks Road, a little above N. T. 
Loomis. 

Noah Gleason, junior, owned and occupied land adjoining his 
father, on the west side of Blue Street, from 1783 to 1787, and after- 
wards on the Brooks Road. Both father and son occasionally shifted 
their residence from Winchester to Torrington, and back again. 

Daniel Grover of Stratford, a shoemaker, bought in 176!) a lot of 
land at the parting of the Norfolk and Brooks Street roads, in first tier, 
first division, which he occupied, living in a house near N. T. Loomis, 
until l78o. He had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. 
He moved to Unadilla, N.Y. Daniel Grover and Mercy St.innanl mar- 
ried April 11, 1773. She died June 5, 1776. 

children. 
[. Mercy, b. May 26, 1776. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 61 

Daniel Grover and Betsy Stanclift married October 13, 1778, and 
had 

CHILDREN. 

II. Mary, b. July 28, 1783 ; d. July 30, 1783. 

III. Daniel, b. January 18, 1787. 

IV. Timothy, b. March 4, 1792; d. March 6, 1792. 
V. Betsy, b. May 3, 1796. 



Joseph Hoskin from Torrington came to Winchester probably in 
1769, and lived on a road bordering on Torrington line, at the south end 
of the third tier, tirst division. He served as trumpeter in the cavalry 
detachment that went down from Litchfield County to Long Island, 
whose gaunt appearance, rusty equipments, and pacing horses excited the 
ridicule of Washington's army, until their good service in the battle and 
retreat from Brooklyn Heights made them better appreciated. He 
was a kind-hearted joviai man, as was indicated by his lifedong sobriquet 
of" Uncle Joe." He died in Winsted, December, 1818, aged eighty-two. 

Joseph Hoskin, junior, married August 20, 1761, Eunice Coe, eldest 
daughter of Ebeuezer Coe, s b. September 22, 1742. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Rachel, 2 bap. April 12, 1762 ; in. December 27, 1783, Lazarus Palmer. 
II. Theodore, 2 bap. in Tor. May 20, 1764; died young. 

III. Theodore, 2 b. April 1766 ; bap. Tor., June 29, 1766; m. Eunice, daughter 

of Thomas and Mary Coe, b. July 24, 1766. 

IV. Roswell/-' h in W., August 30, 1769. 

V. Alexander, 2 !). " August 31, 1773; lived in Winsted a short time, and 
went to Vernon, N. Y. 
VI. Loranda, b. " December 19, 1778; m. November 22, 1803, Ichabod 
Loomis. 
VII Gustavus, b. " March 4, 1784. 

CHILDREN OF THEODORE 3 AND EUNICE (COE) HOSKIN. 

I. Clarissa, 3 b. ; m. December 12, 1808, Christopher Lyon. 

II. Mariah, 3 b. ; m. Luther Phelps. 

III. Erastds, 3 b. ; removed to Ohio. I twins 

IV. Augustus, 3 b. ; " ) 

V. Silas, 3 b. January 20, 1798; m. October 13, 1823, Priscilla Bailey, b. 

Groton, October 26, 1799, daughter of Ransford and Priscilla Bailey. 
Hed. September 9, 1870. 
VI. Roxana, 3 m. May 25, 1826, m. Alva Oakley. 



62 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

CHILDREN OP SILAS AND PRISCILLA (BAILET) HOSKIN. 

I. Ransford Bailey, 4 b. June, 24, 1825; d. October 17, 1828. 
II. Truman Silas, 4 b. March 23, 1827. 

III. Theodore Bailey, 4 b. April 26, 1829. 

VI. Thomas Coe,' 4 b. March 15, 1831. * 

V. Erastus, 4 b. April 9, 1833. 

VI. Charles Sherman, 4 b. February 4, 1835. 

VII. George, 4 b. " 5, 1837. 

Reuben Tucker, from Bolton, bought lands adjoining Norfolk line on 
both sides of Mad River in 17CJ, on which he resided after 1770, until 
his death in 1811, at the age of 64. He left a large family of children, 
most of whom removed from the town early. His son, Isaac Tucker, 
lived in the town as late as 1830. Mr. Tucker built the first saw-mill 
on the site near the Norfolk line, now owned by the Brooks's. He mar- 
ried December 17, 1772, Martha Carrier. He died July 24, 1811, aged 
64 ; she died March 27, 1814, aged 64. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Reuben, b. February 15, 1774; of Elmore, Vermont, in 1814. 

II. Martha, b. October 13, 1775; in. Thayer. 

III. Chloe, b. February 25, 1778; d. October 6, 1783. 

IV. Ira, b. March 19, 1780; d. June 6, 1801. 
V. Moses, b. June 25, 1782; d. July 5, 1782. 

VI. Isaac, b. January LI, 1784; m. Nov. 5, 1805, Pamelia Benedict. 

VII. Hiram, b. February 13, 178(>; d. April 14, 1794. 

VIII. Zebina, b. January 19, 1788; of Elmore, Vermont, in 1813 ; of Sods- 

bury, Erie County, Pennsylvania, in 1817. 
IX. Phebe, b. February 9, 1790. 

X. Charity, b. May 7, 1792 ; wife of Stephen Ackley, 3d, of Chatham, in 
1817. 

Timothy Grover, brother of Daniel, owned land south of and ad- 
joining Daniel's, which he occupied until his death in 1780. He left no 
family. 

Captain Jonathan Alvord, of Chatham, came into the town in 1770 
and lived in a house, long since taken down, near the northwest corner made 
by the Dugway road where it turns west to Winchester center, until he sold 
out to Rev. Joshua Knapp, in 1773. He married, October 16, 17311, Eliza- 
beth vSanford, of Milford. She died at East Hampton, Connecticut, 
April 7, 1764; Ik; married (2d) East Haddam, November 21, 1765, 
widow Mary Brainard. He died June 28, 178 1. in his seventy-third 
year. 

Eliphaz Al\ord, Esq., son of Jonathan above named, born at East 
Hampton, town of Chatham, January 13, 1742; married, November 29, 
1764, Esther Hart, of New Britain, born April 1764. In 1770 he came 
to Winchester, and following the marked trees to the land he had pur- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 63 

chased, cleared and planted a garden and built a log house, in three 
weeks, and then returned* and moved his family and effects to his new 
home, carrying one child in his arms, and another behind him on one 
horse, and his wife riding another horse with an infant in her arms, while 
their effects were drawn on an ox-cart. He afterwards built, opposite his 
first log house, on west side of the Dugway road a red lean-to house, a 
little north of the line of the road westerly to the center, in which he re- 
sided during his remaining life. Both houses have long since disappeared, 
and no new structures mark their sites. 

He was chosen Town Clerk at the organization of the town in 1771, 
and continued to hold the office, with the exception of two years, until his 
voluntary resignation in 1819. His records are a model of accuracy and 
penmanship; and the vote of thanks for his faithful services was well 
merited. In 1779 he was appointed the first Justice of the Peace in the 
town, and held the office until disqualified by age, discharging the duties 
with equal ability and rectitude. If in doubt as to the law of any case 
before him on trial, he almost invariably went to Litchfield and consulted 
Judge Reeve, or some other able counsel before deciding the points. His 
cases were invariably recorded at large, with great precision, and in 
perfect legal form, — even to the taking of recognizances and administer- 
ing of oaths. His records give a better insight to the prevailing habits, 
customs, and vices of his day than can be obtained from any other source. 

Rev. Frederick Marsh, in his commemorative sermon, deposited with 
the Connecticut Historical Society, says of Mr. Alvord: — 

" He had a better education than most men of that day in the ordinary 
walks of life. He possessed a strong mind, mature judgment, and de- 
cided piety. His punctuality, accuracy, and weight of character, and 
taleut for business, with his remarkably fair and legible hand-writing, 
were well appreciated by his fellow-townsmen. He held, and admirably 
executed the office of Town Clerk about forty-six years, and it is said, as 
an illustration of his fidelity, that of one hundred and seventeen Town 
Meetings holderi dining his life, he was present at all but one of them. 
When not detained by special cause, he was almost never absent from 
public worship on the Sabbath, or from stated and occasional meetings of 
the Church. He held and performed the duties of Justice of the Peace 
for many years, and represented the town in the Legislature more fre- 
quently than perhaps any other man. Having been chosen a Representa- 
tive when past seventy — in a very handsome and appropriate address to 
the people, he acknowledged their former respect and confidence toward 
him, and declined the appointment, desiring that he might never again be 
considered a candidate for any office. 

His influence in the school-room, in the Church, in the society and 
town, and wherever he was known, was great and eminently salutary." 



64 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

His wife died November 18, 1818, aged 76. He died April 15, 1825, 
aged 83 years. No descendants bearing bis name remain in the town. 

CHILDREN OF ELIPHAZ 3 AND ESTHER (HART) ALVORD. 

I. Elizabeth, 3 1>. November 22, 1765; d. June 26, 1818, unmarried. 
II. Esther, 3 b. January 18, 1768 ; m. February 5, 1792, Dea. Levi Piatt. 

III. Sylvester, 3 b. February 21, 1770; d. March 13, 1770. 

IV. Lois, 3 b. March 4, 1771 ; m. Levi Ackley, January 6, 1795. 
V.John, 3 b. May 27, 1773; m. Winchester, January 16, 1800, Ex- 
perience Webb, b. Hillsdale, Mass., Jan. 13, 1778; he d. October 20, 
1841. 

VI. Anna, 3 b. November 11, 1774; m. Abel Tibballs. 

VII. Achsah, 8 b. August 14, 1778; d. July 2, 1779. 

VIII. Eliphaz, 8 b. September 29, 1780; d. October 27, 1780. 

IX. Achsah, 3 b. May 21, 1782; d. same day. 

X. EliaS, 3 b. March 4, 1784; d. April 23, 1784. 

CHILDREN OF JOHN :1 AND EXPERIENCE (WEBB) ALVORD. 

I. Achsah, 4 b. November 11, 1800; m. February 22, 1829, James Lewis, of 
Wethersrield ; settled in Berlin, Connecticut ; he d. in 1860; had chil- 
dren, Celestia Chappel, b. January 20, 1830; Edward James, b. Decem- 
ber 3, 1836. 
II. Isaac Hylas, 4 b. July 15, 1802 ; m. at Evansburg, Pennsylvania, February, 
1836; d. February 1, 1847; had children, Esther, b. February, 1837, d. 
February, 1842; Mary, b. November, 1839, d. November, 1843. 

III. Huldah Elthy, 4 b. November 4, 1803; m. October 3, 1827, Elijah M. 

Gaylord, of Gainesville, New York ; she d. July 6, 1855 ; had children, 
Silas M., b. June 9, 1830; Margarette Experience, b. April, 1834; 
Mary Elizabeth, b. April, 1838; all of whom married and settled in 
Plain view, Minnesota. 

IV. Eliphaz, 4 b. March 13, 1807 : m. October 14, 1832, Mary Cravath ; she d. 

May 4, 1861; he m. (2d) November 23, 1861, Ruby Bissell ; be had 
children, Eugene Stow, b. April 9, 1835, d. June 29, 1841; Coridon 
Alexis, b. March 18, 1839, d. May 8, 1840: Mary Braincrd, b. March 
17, 1844; m. October 29, 1863, Capt. Sterling Manchester; Sarah 
Cravath, b. September 27, 1846 ; Emma Salome, b. May 5, 1851. He d. 
Nov. 9, 1871. 
V. David Sanford, 4 b. October 18, 1809; m. October 5, 1835, Sarah An- 
drus; settled in Austiuburg, Ohio ; had children, Ellen Maria, b. Au- 
gust 26, 1836; Elizabeth Louisa, b. December 20, 1837; Sarah Jennet, 
b. January 15, 1840; Mary Loretta, b. April 19, 1841 ; Eugene David, 
b. April 30, 1843; (1. ; George Nelson, b. July 14, 1848; 

Coridon Alexis, b. December 2, 1849. 
VI. Coridon Alexis, 4 b. May 12, 1813 ; m. September •'., 1836, Mary Ann Buck- 
land ; for many years engaged in the printing business in New York city ; 
retired in 1871, and now resides near Hartford, Conn.; had children : 
Coridon Alexis, b. in Hartford, May 30, 1827; Mary Elizabeth, b. in 
Hartford, March 20, 1839, d. October 8, 1843 ; Buldah Amelia, b. in Hart- 
ford, May 31, 1841, m. December 5, 1860, Henry Howard, and had a 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 65 

child, Adeline EL, b. November 1, 1861, and her husband d. December 
16, 1861 ; Mary Elizabeth, h. in Hartford, March -26, 1843 ; ni. May31st, 
1866, Charles Ferret. Children: Frank Alvord, b. August 2, 1867; 
Leon Louis, b. April 22d, 1872 ; Eliphaz Eugene, b. in Brooklyn New 
York, May 5, 1845, d. January 25, 1846; Caroline Experience, 1). in 
New York, September 18, 1847; m. February 6, 1867, Charles B. 
( '• ie. Children : Condon Ward, b. December 5, . 868 ; Charles Frederick, 
b. iii New York, August31, 1851, d. April 3,1852; Florence Nightingale, 
b. in New York, June 7, 1857 ; George Mather, b. in New York, < >ctobi r 
25, 1860. 
VII. John- Calvin, 4 b. November 26, 1818; d. June 6, 1857; unmarried. 
VIII. Lois Elizabeth, 4 b. May 5, 1820; m. April. 1841, Cornelius Vrooman ; 
he d. < Ictober 20, 1848 ; she d. -July 9, 1850 ; had children, Coridon Alexis, 
b. February 6, 1844; d. November 1, 1850; Daniel McKinney, b. Jan- 
uary 31, 1847. 

Warham Gibbs, from Litchfield, came into the town in 1770, and 
lived on the east side of a road now discontinued, running southerly from 
Winchester center, by the first meeting-house to the Luther Bronson place. 
The road, the house of Mr. Gibbs, and the old meeting-house, and ;dl 
other traces of civilization in that vicinity, except a few ancient apple 
trees, have disappeared for near half a century. 

Mr. Gibbs was Moderator of the first Town Meeting, and the first 
Constable of the town — also frequently appointed " to assist in reading 
the psalm" on Sundays, and to-discharge other public trusts and duties. 
He went to Ticonderoga and Canada in 177:") and 1776 as lieutenant and 
captain, and did other service in the revolutionary war. He removed 
from the town in 1780. He married in Suffield, March 3, 1756, Eunice 
Spencer. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Darius, b. in Litchfield. February 9, 1759. 

II. Dorcas, b. " " July 15, 1763. 

III. Miriam, b. " " January 19, ; d. September 3, 1774. 

IV. Eunice, b. " " June 11, 1772. 
V. Zebulon, b. " " June 2, 1774. 

VI. Woodruff, b. " " October 15, 1776. 

VII. Azubah, b. " " November 1, 1778. 

Lewis Wilkinson, from New Milford, with his sons, .)^^' and Levi, 
came to Winchester in 1770, and lived until 1773 on the farm on the 
Brooks road, — afterwards owned by Abram Andrews, — and afterwards 
until 1784 on the farm on the west side of the Brooks road, recently 
owned by Nathan Tibballs. He died August 31, 1785. 

Jesse Wilkinson, son of the above, lived on lands adjoining his 
father's in a red lean-to house. He married, May 16, 177"2, Eunice 
Roberts. 

9 



66 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 

I. Eunice, b. December 17, 1772. 

II. Miles, b. June 6, 1773. 

III. Lois, b. April 16, 1774; d. December 26, 1774. 

IV. Lois, b. May 6, 1777. 
V. Lucina, b. June 18, 1781. 

Levi Wilkinson, son of Lewis, lived between his father and his 
brother Jesse, on the west side of Brooks road until 1789. He married, 
April 23, 1776, Bathsheba Tucker. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Levi Clark, b. January 23, 1778. 

II. Elizabeth, b. September 19, 1782. 

III. Ira, b. April 18, 1785. 

IV. Asahel, b. November 10, 1788. 

Samuel Wetmore, 1 born in Middletown, Middlefield Society, March 
13, 1692; married, June 21, 1722, Hannah Hubbard, born July 21, 
1700. He came to Winchester at the age of 79 years in 1771, and set- 
tled with his son, Samuel Wetmore, Jr., on the farm now owned and oc- 
cupied by his great great-grand-son, Deacon Abel Samuel Wetmore. He 
died December 30, 1773, aged 81, — and is said to have been the first 
person whose remains were deposited in the Winchester burying-ground.* 
She died June 4, 1797. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Samuel,' 2 b. December 24, 1723. 

II. Hannah, 2 b. " 18, 1725. 

III. John,' 2 b. October 27, 1727. 

IV. Noah, 2 b. April 16, 1730; graduated at Yale 1757; ordained in No- 

vember 1760; settled as pastor at Bethel, Connecticut, November 25, 
1770; had two children bap. in Torrington, Irenia, March 30, 1761, and 
Ann, February 12, 1768. 
V. Mehitabel, 2 b. August 5, 1732. 
VI. Sarah/ 2 b. March 31, 1734. 

VII. Lois,' 2 b. " 6, 1736. 

VIII. Joel, 2 b. " 9, 1738; m. November 23, 1763, Sarah Lyman; 

had three children bap. in Torrington, Olive, March 10, 1765; Ebenezer 
Lyman, December 28, 1776 ; and Millicent, .January 19, 1772. 
IX. Millicent, 2 b. September 15, 1739. 
X. Mary, 2 b. July 23, 1741. 

*This burying-ground is held by a lease for the term of 999 years, from Samuel 
Wetmore, Jr., to Seth<Hills, Warham Gibbs, Committee in behalf of the Society, — 
the lessor reserving the use and improvement of the same as to the herbage. — See 
Winchester Land Records, Book 2, page 563. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 67 

Samuel Wetmore, Jr., 2 better known as Deacon Samuel, came to 
the town with his father in 1771, and became a prominent and eminently 
useful member of the infant community. He was chosen one of the se- 
lectmen of the town at its first annual meeting, and one of the deacons of 
the church after its institution. He married Anna Roberts, born March 
16, 1723 ; she died September 22, 1804 ; he died March 2, 1809, aged 86. 

CHILD. 
I. Abel, 3 b. in Middletown, April 6, 1753. 

John Wetmore, 2 married Elizabeth Learning; they settled in Tor- 
rington, where he died August 27, 1795. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, 3 bap. in Torrington, October 15, 1758; m. David Alvord. 
II. Seth, 3 b. " " March 20, 1761. 

III. Samuel, 3 b. " " December 31, 1763. 

Abel Wetmore, 3 an only child, came to Winchester with his father 
on the first Wednesday in May, 1771 ; married, May 12, 1774, Jerusha 
Hills, daughter of John. She died April 30, 1780; and he married (2d), 
April 17, 1783, Mrs. Mary (Smith) Allen. He died May 20, 1790, and 
Ins widow married Lovelaud. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Truman, 4 b. August 12, 1774. 

II. Anna Jerosha, 4 b. March 6, 1776; m. January 21, 1801, to Elijah 

Starks or Starkweather. 

III. John, 4 b. February 6, 1778. 

IV. Samuel, 4 (known as Samuel H.) b. March 24, 1780. 
V. Abel, 4 b. September 23, 1783. 

VI. Elisha, 4 b. April 11, 1785. 

Major Seth Wetmore, 8 born in Torrington, March 20, 1761 ; lived 
in Winchester ; married December 9, 1779, Lois, daughter of Colonel 
Ozias Bronson of Winchester. 41e died in Canajoharie, N. Y., April 
16, 1836. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, 2d, 4 b. in W., October 7, 1780. 

II. Seth, 4 !»■ " October, 1784; d. at Lake Pleasant, 

N. Y., November, 1831. 

III. Abigail Beach, 4 b. " January, 1787 ; d. at Eagle Village, 

N. Y., October 1858. 

IV. Artemisia, 4 b. " November, 1789; d. ;ii Canajoharie, 

N. Y., July, 1813. 



V. 


Alphonso, 4 

June, 1849. 


b. 


VI. 


Salmon B., 4 


b. 


VII. 


Pythagoras, 4 
N. Y. 


b. 


VIII. 


Lois Melinda, 4 


b. 




1841. 





68 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

b. in W., February' 5, 1793; d. at St. Louis, Mo., 

September 5, 1795. 

April 2, 1798, a lawyer at Canajobarie, 

June 15, 1800; d. in Kentucky, July, 

Major Seth Wetmore, 3 had by a second wife two children, born 
in Canajoharie, N. Y. 

IX. Lucy Elizabeth, 4 b. May 9, 180-2. 

X. George Clinton, 4 b. June, 1809. 

Samuel Wetmore^ born in Torrington, December 31, 1763; mar- 
ried May 15, 1788, Hannah Griswold; he was known as Samuel 
Wetmore 2d ; he lived in W. 











CHILDREN. 




I. 


Selina, 4 


b. in 


W. 


, Marcb 13, 1789. 




II. 


Leaming, 4 (son) 


b. 


" 


February 13, 1791. 




III. 


Kuby 4 , 


b. 


" 


June 27, 


1793. 




IV. 


Almeda, 4 


b. 






1795. 




V. 


Candace, 4 


b. 






1797. 




VI. 


Calvary, 4 


b. 






1799. ' 


. Jan. 10, 1827, Athea Skinm 
m. 2d Jan. 14, 1834, Elizabei 
daughter of Isaac Bronson. 


VII. 

nil. 


Samuel, 4 
Hannah, 4 


b. 
b. 






1801. 
1804. 




IX. 


Harriet T., 4 


b. 






1806. 




X. 


Hurlbut G., 4 


1). 






1808. 




XI. 


Clarissa, 4 


b. 






1811. 





til. 



Dr. Truman Wetmore, 1 married October 18, 171)9, Sylvia Spencer, 
daughter of Thomas; she died March 27, 1800, and in her memory he 
added the name "Spencer" to his Christian name. December 27, 1800; 
he married (second) Elizabeth Jarvis; she died May 7, 1*44, aged 58; 
he died July 21. 1861, aged 87. Soon after the death of his first wife 
he began the study of medicine, under Dv*. Woodward of Torrington, 
Moore of Winsted, and McEwen of Albany, N. Y. Receiving his 
diploma in 1802 he commenced practice in Vermont, but in 1806 returned 
to Winchester, and in the following year, on the breaking out of the 
spotted fever in this county, he was the first who treated it successfully. 
He was a well-read and successful physician of the old school, a poet of 
local celebrity, a musical composer (some of his tunes being still retained 
in the worship of the churches), a man of genial humor and tender 
feelings, and a chronicler of olden times to whom the compiler is largely 
indebted. He continued in practice until .the age of 75. His residence 
until about 1828 was on the south side of Cooper Lane, about half a 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. gg 

mile west of the center, and during his remaining life in the old Parsonage 
house, now owned by his son-in-law, Leonard B. Hurlbut. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sylvia Eliza, 5 b. October 20, 1805; in. Leonard B. Hurlbut. 

II. Darwin Woodward, b. September 2, 1807 ; d. August 20, 1853. 

III. William Jarvis, 6 b. June 30, 1809; resides in the city of New York ; a 

physician, poet, and popular musical composer. He delivered the poem 
at the Centennial of the Winchester Church, August 16, 1871. 

IV. George Whitefield, 6 b. October 1!, 1812; graduated M.D., atPittsfield, 

1838 ; m. November 29, 1843, Sarah Ann Thompson, b. April 28, 1819, 
daughter of Deacon Seth and Anne (Burton) Thompson ; has children. 
George Thompson, b. Amenia, N. Y, February 9, 1845 ; Elizab.-rh 
Jarvis, b. A., April 6, 1846 ; Mary Fitch, b. W., April 16, 1855. 
V. Charles Fitch, b. August 21, 1815; grad. Washington College in 1841. 

John Wetaiore, 4 born February 6,1778; married November 19, 

1801, Lucy Nash, daughter of John. He settled on the homestead of 
his ancestors, where he died May 24, 1832 ; she died August, 18(39, 
aged 85. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abel Samuel, 5 b. November 16, 1802. 

II. Lucy Esther, 6 b. December 12,1806; m. September 11, 1833, Fred 

P., son of Miles Hill. 

III. Hannah Jerusha, 5 b. June 11, 1809; m. October 13, 1840, Lewis 

Whiting. 

IV. Clarissa Whiting, 5 b. May 14, 1816; in. March 30, is:?r>, George L. 

Whiting. 
V. Rebecca Nash, 6 b. December 8, 1812; m. Novemher 1 1, 1846, Alonso 

Whiting. 

John Wetmore,' 2d, bora October 7, 1780 ; married December 30, 

1802, Huldah Spencer, daughter of Thomas. He first lived in the 
house next north of A. S. Wetmore, then about 1817 to 1820, in the 
red bouse at the crossing of the roads between the two lakes, and finally 
in the house at the center now owned by Washington Hatch, where he 
died November 12, 1823, aged 43. She married (second) Jonathan 
Coe. 

children. 

I. Horatio Lucius, 5 b. September 24, 1803 ; m. May 20, 1829, Hannah, 

Catlin, daughter of Horace; she d. September 20, 1856, leaving a 
daughter Sarah Louisa, b. April 12, 1833; he m. (second) ' 1st',:', 
Abigail Kilburn, daughter of Klisha. 
II. Celestia, 6 b. in W , May 30, 1805; m. January 2Q, 1831, 

Luman Catlin. 



70 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

III. Sarepta, 5 b. in W., August 2, 1807; d. unmarried January 

4, 1862. 

IV. Louisa Matilda, 5 b. " May 25, 1810; m. October 19, 1830, 

Jabez Gillett Curtis. 
V. Willard Spencer, 6 b. " May 8, 1813; m. October 24, 1839, 

Julia Ann Woodford, daughter of Erastus. Children : Willie, b. Nov- 
2, 1841 ; d. same day ; Julia, b. May, 1849; d. same day. 
^VI. John Grinnell, 5 b. in W., April 27, 1817; m. October 3, 1841, 

Eliza F. Rossiter. She d. March 9, 1847, leaving a daughter, Eliza 
Rossiter, b February 20, 1847. He m. (second) November 1, 1848, 
Eliza P. Lee. 
VII. Huldah Ann, 5 b. July 1, 1821 ; m. April 17, 1844, Jonathan 

A. Rossiter. 

Samuel Wetmore, 4 known as Samuel H., married December 2, 
1802, Sally Beach, daughter of Adna. They removed to Vernon, N. Y., 
where he died March 23, 1813. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Mary Sophronia, 5 b. May 10, 1803; m. (first) Silas H., and (second) 
Samuel A. McAlpine. 
II. Harriet Eliza, 5 b. November 8, 1806; m. John McAlpine, Jr. 

Deacon Abel Samuel Wetmore, 5 married November 24, 1829, 
Lucy Almira Hills, born March 18, 1810, daughter of Miles. He owns 
and occupies by regular descent the farm of his ancestor Deacon Samuel 
Wetmore. Possessing a retentive memory, and a large fund of tradi- 
tional lore, his aid in the compilation of these annals has been highly 
prized. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julia Ann," b. August 18, 1830; d. June 5, 1831. 

II. John Nash, b. in W., March 8, 1833. 

Ill Ellen Eliza, b. " October 29, 1834; m. August 14, 1856 ) 

Stephen G. Beecher, New Milford. 
IV. Le Roy Whiting, 6 !). " September 28, 1836. 

V. Miles Hills, 6 b. " September 6, 1840. 
VI. Samuel Abel, 6 b. " September 25, 1842. 

VII. Hubert Porter, 6 b. " February 21, 1847. 

David Goff's name is on the petition for incorporation of the town 
dated August 4, 1767, but it does not appear that he was ever a land- 
owner, nor is his residence ascertainable. He was an early member of 
the Church, and is occasionally named on the records as holding subor- 
dinate town oflices. From an affidavit of Colonel Aaron Austin accom- 
panying a petition of Goff for compensation for military service, it appears 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 71 

that he served as sergeant in Captain Griswold's Company, in an expe- 
dition to Canada in 1775, and that in 1776 he and his son enlisted in the 
company of which Austin was captain, and that in the retreat from 
Canada in that year, he was the means of saving the army from destruc- 
tion by devising and carrying out a plan of getting the boats up the 
Chamblee Rapids by means of drag-ropes, with men on the shores to tow 
them, instead of carrying them and their freight a circuit of some miles by 
land, as had been the custom, which it was impossible to do without 
teams, of which the army was destitute. It appears by the same docu- 
ment that he was afterwards a lieutenant in the Continental Army. It 
also appears by Sedgwick's "History of Sharon" that he resided in that 
town during a part of the revolutionary period. 

CHILDREN OF DAVID AND MARY GOFF. 

I. Irena, b. January 9, 1770. 
II. Sarah, bap. February 10, 1771. 
Hi. Esther, b. November 10, 1772. 

Captain Benjamin Benedict, from Danbury, was chosen a Sur- 
veyor of Highways at the first annual town meeting. His first deed 
dated April 4, 1771, in which he is named Benjamin Benedict, junior, 
conveys to him the Colonel Whiting Lot on both sides of Mad River 
where the Danbury School-house stands. His homestead stood on a 
discontinued road east of the present road, running east of the school- 
house, on the hill south of Mad River. He built a saw mill on the south 
side of Mad River,.above the bridge, nearly all traces of which have now 
disappeared. He removed to Coventry, Chenango Co., N. Y., in 1807. 
He married, May 27, 1762, Mary Bouton. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Noah,- l>. May 28, 1763; m. May 22, 1788, Chloe Andrews; lived on 

part of his father's homestead ; his last deed on record is dated 1805 ; 
had son Noah, b March 18, 1789. 
II. Abijah,' 2 b. April 30, 1765; m. June 11, 1789, Abigail Corbin; lived 
south of Noah, on part of his father's original homestead; he probably 
left town before 1800; had Daniel, b. February 26, 1790; Sylvester, 
i>. December 4, 1794. 

III. Benjamtn, 2 b. July 18, 1767; m. July 3, 1788, Sibyl Loomis. He was a 

deacon; bad Wealthy, b. March 9,1793; Sylvia Melissa, b. May 15, 
1811. He lived on the east side of the old country road, south of the 
Corbins. 

IV. Eden, 2 b. May 6, 1770; m. May 24, 1792, Miranda Culver; had son 

Ira, b. May 16, 1794. 
V. Mary, 2 b. November 10, 1772 ; m. October 25, 1792, Levi Bronson, 

second. 



72 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

VI. Phebb, 2 b. May 30, 1775 ; m. August 1, 1796, Levi Daw. 

VII. Eliakim, 2 b. March 9, 1778. 
VIII. Huldah, 2 b. April 6, 1782; m. November 1, 1799, Lorrain Sweet. 

Captain Timothy Benedict, from Danbury, named in his first deed, 
Timothy Benedict, Jr., bought in 1771 the eastern half of the lot origi- 
nally purchased by Captain Benjamin Benedict, lying on both sides of 
Mad River, and enclosing the Danbury school-house, on which he re- 
sided until his death. His wife, Mrs. Lydia Benedict, died in this town 
February 21, 1824, aged 95. 

The land records show that he had three sons, Timothy, Jr., William, 
and Joshua, who came with him to Winchester and to whom he conveyed 
portions of his land. There was an Elizabeth Benedict, married to 
Hezekiah Elmer, September 7, 1774, who may have been his daughter. 

Timothy Benedict, Jr., 2 owned land on both sides of Mad River 
east of the highway and running south from the Danbury school-house, 
and lived on the east side of the road nearly opposite the Danbury bury- 
ing-ground until his decease. He married, October 5, 1773, Mary Judd. 

Sl.c died September 8, 1822, aged 75 ; and he died November 27, 1836, 
aged 89. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Deborah, 3 b. August 29, 1774; m. William Crocker. 

II. Timothy, 3 h. March 8, 1777. 

III. Sarah, 3 b. August 17, 1781. 

IV. Mela, 3 h. October 23, 1784. 

William Benedict,-' son of Timothy, is named of New Marlboro, 
Massachusetts, in a deed of 178(5, July 5. No record of his family is 
found. 

Joshua Benedict, 2 son of Timothy, is not found on the records 
after L786. He married, November 15, 1784, Mary Wilcox, and had a 
child, Anna, horn March 13. 1786. He removed to Montreal, L. C, and 
is supposed to have died there. 

Timothy Benedict,' son of Timothy, 2 lived and died (Mch. 29, 1820) 
in the house now owned by Joel Tuttle, on the easterly side of the turn- 
pike above the toll-gate. He married Lydia, daughter of John Crocker, 
and had by her 

children. 

I. Rhoda, 5 b. September 1, 1S0O; m. Willard Hart; d. in 1824. 
II. Hannah, 5 b. November 2, 1S02; m. Eleazer Andrews. 

III. Lydia, 6 b. December 8, 1809; m. Charles Seldcn; d., 1834. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 73 

Deacon Nathaniel Dutton, from Woodbury, purchased in 1771, 
Lot 33, first tier, first division, and built a house thereon. He sold a part 
of the lot to John Bradley the same year, and sold the remainder to 
Ichabod Loornis in 1773, and returned to Woodbury. He afterwards 
came and finished the second meeting-house in 1785. He afterwards had 
his permanent residence in Litchfield (Northfield parish). He was father 
to the late Professor Mathew Rice Dutton, of Yale College, and of ex- 
Governor Henry Dutton, of New Haven. 

John Bradley is described as of Winchester in Nathaniel Dutton's 
deed of December 19, 1771, conveying to him seventy acres from the 
north side of Lot 33, first division, lying on the west side of the road a 
little south of the Widow Everitt house, which he conveyed to Daniel 
Loornis in 1778, and probably then left the town. 

Danif.l Platt, from Danbury, bought of Benjamin Benedict a lot of 
land on Waterbury River turnpike, a little south of the Potter place, in 
1771, which he conveyed to Phillip Priest in 1776. He and his wife, 
Thankful, had a son, Stephen, baptized March 13, 1774. 

Lemuel Stannard, Jr., from Saybrook, is a signer of the petition for 
incorporation of the town in 1771, and is a grantee of land in 1772. He 
first owned land on Blue street, and afterwards a little west of the center. 
His name disappears from the records about 1780. He was born April 
13, 17.")(); married, April 14, 1774, Christian Spencer. 

children. 

I. Chadncey, b. December 23, 1774. 
II. Margaret, b. August 29, 1776. 

Abel Stannard, supposed to be son of Lemuel, Senior, bought in 
1779 a lot, lying immediately north of the Little Pond, and built and 
lived in a square-roofed house on the road running along the east side of 
the pond — nearly opposite the Dan. Beckley lane — and sold out to 
Amasa Wade in 1803. He married, June 23, 1774, Phebe Steveus. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Phebe, b. September 4, 1776. 

II. Tomesin, b. April 10, 1781. 

III. Abel, b. " 20, 1784. 

IV. Sarah, b. March 28, 1786. 
V. Hekvky, b. February 18, 1788. 

VI. Ruth (twin), b. March 27, 1790. 

VII Ltdia (twiu), b. " " " 

VIII. Zfnas, b. July 23, 1793. 

IX. Giles, b. September 14, 1795. 

10 



74 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



Lemuel Stannard, Senior, from Saybrook, is grantee, in 1778, of a 
lot in second tier, first division, near Reuben Chase's, which he conveyed 
to his son, William, in 1789, describing it as his homestead. In 1796, 
he is alluded to in a deed as " Lemuel Stannard, late of Winchester, de- 
ceased." 

William Stannard occupied his father's homestead until 1790, when 
he sold out to Col. Ozhis Bronson ; and afterwards owned land in Dan. 
bury quarter, which he conveyed to his father-in-law, Peleg Sweet, in 
1800. He married, September 15, 1779, Hannah Sweet. 

CHILDREN. 

I William, b. December 2, 1780. 
II. Mercy, b. October 15, 1782. 

Seth Stannard, married, November 13, 1785, Martha Preston. He 
owned no land in town. 

CHILD. 
1. Seth, b. February 15, 1786. 

Ezra Stannard, son to Lemuel Stannard and Ruth, his wife, born " at 
Saybrook, March 13, A. D. 1766," married, January 19, 17»6, Margaret 
Norton. He owned in 1793 and 1794, the Humphrey farm, on the east 
side of Long Pond, south of the Pratt farm, which he sold to Levi Ackley 
and Ozias Spencer. In 1795, he is named of Torrington. 



CHILDREN. 

I. Charles, b. October 16, 1786. 

II. Lorrain, b. May 9, 1788. 

III. Oklow, b. April 13, 1790. 

IV. Grinnell, b. January 30, 1792. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIETY OF WINCHESTER ORGANIZED— FIRST HOUSE OF WORSHIP. 

We have followed out the slow settlement of the town, from the first 
entry of Caleb Beach in 1750, to the year 1768, and endeavored to locate 
and commemorate its pioneers. We find them as yet confined to the cor- 
ner of the township bordered on the northeast by the Old South Country 
road, comprising little more than one-eighth of the territory. Of the 
families whose prior residence is ascertained, six were from Torrington, 
two each from Goshen and Hartford, and one each from Woodbury, Wal- 
lingford, Derby, Suffield, Stratford, and Farmington. 

Their first utterance as a social community seems to have been a pe- 
tition to the Colonial Assembly, dated August 4, 17G7. It so graphically 
sets forth their condition and needs as to render it worthy of transcribing : 

"To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecti- 
cut, to be convened at New Haven on the 2d Tuesday of October, 1757. 

'• The memorial of us the subscribers, Inhabitants of the Township of 
Winchester, in the County of Litchfield, humbly sheweth, 

"That whereas there is ahout IS families, containing 82 souls, have he- 
gun a settlement in said Township, and by reason of our distance from 
any place of Public Worship, it being near or quite seven miles to the 
nearest, makes it extremely difficult for any of us to attend public 
worship at any of said places, and utterly impossible for us to convey our 
families, so that we are laid under a necessity of bringing up our families 
in Ignorance, and Strangers to publick Gospel Preaching, not being 
able to hire preaching ourselves by reason of our infant state of settle- 
ment, and the greatest part of the land in said Township belongs to men 
of Wealth, who are under no necessity either to sell or to settle their land, 
which makes our case peculiarly difficult, and as the welfare of the soul 
is of vastly more importance than that of the body, your memorialists 
humbly pray that your honours will take the state of our Case into serious 
consideration and comiterate our miserable Circumstances, and that you 
would incorporate and form us into a Town with Town privileges, and 
lay a small tax on all the divided lands in said Township, in the first and 
third Divisions lying south and west of the Long Pond, such as may en- 



76 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

able us to support the Gospel among us, or otherwise provide for our re- 
lief as you in your wisdom shall think best and most for the honour of 
God and interest of said religion amongst us, and your memorialists as in 
duty bound shall ever pray, &c. Dated at Winchester the 4th day of 
August, 1767. 

SETH HILLS, LENT MOTT, 

AARON COOK, ABEL BEACH, Proprietor, 

ROBERT COE, JOHN SMITH, 

ROBERT MACUNE, DAVID AUSTIN, 

DAVID GOFF, BERIAH HILLS, Proprietor, 

WILLIAM FILLEY, JOEL BEACH, 

ENOCH PALMER, NOBLE AVRED, 

THOMAS HOSMER, SIMEON LOOMIS, 

ADAM MOTT, OLIVER COE, 

JOHN HILLS, SAMUEL PRESTON." 

Of these petitioners eighteen were residents of the town, and ten of 
them became members of the church at, or immediately after, its organi- 
zation. 

It does not appear that any action was had by the Assembly on this 
petiiion. Another petition was brought to the May Session in 1768, 
similar in substance to the former, and signed by fifteen of the former 
memorialists, and also by John Preston, Jonathan Preston, John Wet- 
more, and Ebenezer Preston ; in which the population is stated to be 
about twenty-one families and 110 souls. Upon this memorial, the 
General Assembly resolved "that the inhabitants living on the west side 
and south end of the Long Pond, and the lands south of the same, as far 
as Torrington line, and all those west of said Pond to Norfolk line, and 
north upon said line until it comes to Colebrook line, and easl upon Cole- 
brook line, so far as to include the westernmost tier of lots on the second or 
northeast division of lots in said township of Winchester, be and remain 
for the future, one entire and distinct Ecclesiastical Society, ****** 
and that a tax of one penny half-penny per acre per annum be laid upon 
all the lands lying within the lines and limits aforesaid, as well those 
belonging to non resident proprietors as others, for the term of three 
years now next ensuing, and that David Austin be a collector with full 
power to collect and pay said rate or tax toward the support of the min- 
istry in said Society," &c. 

Under this act of incorporation, a Society meeting was held, June 29, 
1768, and the following votes passed: 

" Voated, that John Smith should be Moderator for sd. Meeting. 
" that Seth Hills should be Clark for sd. Sosiety. 
" that all free agents be lawful voaters. 

that Thomas Hosmer should be fust Commety man for sd. 
Sosiety. 



ORGANIZATION OF WINCHESTER. 77 

" Voated, William Filey sec nd Coramety man for said Sosiety. 
" Seth Hills be third Commety man for sd. Sosietay. 

" that the Sosiety will except 74 pounds of the tax yearly." 

September 20, 1768, at an adjourned meeting, it was " voated, that the 
meeting on the Saboth should be continued att John Hills til December 
next." 

" That the Sisiety will aply to the Association for advice." October 
13, 1768, " Voated that y l Society wil wait til week after next for Mr. 
Mills."* 

" Voated, that the Comity shall try for Mr. Pitkin proid Mr. Mills 
don't com." 

At the Annual Meeting, first Tuesday of December, 1768, Thomas 
Hosmer, Seth Hills, and John Hills, were chosen Society Committee : 
Seth Hills, Clerk, and Thomas Hosmer, Treasurer ; and the Committee 
were instructed to apply to Samuel John Mills to supply them. 

At the Annual Meeting, December 28, 1769, the privilege of voting 
extended to "all free agents by vote of a former meeting, was confined to 
all the inhabitants that are of age"; — and after choice of Committee, 
Clerk, and Treasurer, the following additional appointments were made : 
" John Hills, Corester ; Abram Filley, Corestcr ; David Austin, to read 
the Psalm ; Beriah Hills, to assist to read the Psalm." 

And was voted " that our anuel meeting shall be warnid by the Com- 
inity by setting up a paper on a post by the Meeting House at least eight 
days before y c meeting, telling the place and time of day." 

At the Annual Meeting, December 11, 1770, after appointment of 
officers, the sweeping of the. meeting house was set up to the lowest bid- 
der, and bid off by Jesse Wilkinson, at 5s. lid. lor the year. The expens* ;s < »f 
the year were reported to be £60 4s. 3d., and of the years 1768 and 176'.), 
£69 8s. l>il. — and the meeting adjourned to the first Monday of March, 
1771, at which adjourned meeting it was "voted, that we will send a p< - 
tition to the Assembly next May for tound privileges." 

" Voted, that we will send a Petition to the assembly next May for a 
Tax for the Settlement of a Minister and building a Meeting House." 

"Voted, that Beriah Hills and Warham Gibbs shall assist in reading 
the Psalm." 

" Voted, that John Hills and Abram Filley shall sett the Psalm." 

The first mention of a meeting house in the infant society is made in a 
vote in 1769 already quoted. No record is found referring in any way to 
the building of this sanctuary ; nor is any traditionary account of its erec- 
tion, or by whom it was erected, discoverable. No tax was laid to pay 
for it, and no building committee was appointed to superintend it. 

* Rev. Samuel J. Mills, afterwards the venerable and eccentric pastor of Torring- 
ford. 



78 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



On the 20th September, 1768, it was voted that the Sabbath meeting 
should be held, until the next December, at John Hills' house, which 
stood near the Hurlbut Cemetery; — then follows, in December, 1769, 
the vote requiring notices of society meetings to be placed on a post by 
the meeting house. These votes would indicate 1768 as the year of its 
erection. It stood on the slope of a hill, on the west side of a road long 
since discontinued, coming up from the Luther Bronson house, and pass- 
ing immediately in front of the houses of Marcus Munsill and Noble J. 
Everitt, to Winchester center. The traces of the old road are indistinct- 
ly visible, but no indication of a church having once stood on the sloping 
ground on its borders are visible. The place has no feature of conven- 
ience or beauty to recommend it. Its uneven and rocky surface would 
utterly preclude all attempts at improvement, while no village could have 
grown up around if. In the ab-ence of facts as to its origin, it might be 
theorized that it was originally a barn, and was extemporized into a meet- 
ing house, — were it not that the height of the building fell short of the 




requisite of a barn, and that no farmer would ever have put a barn in such 
an inaccessible position. A dwelling it could not have been intended for, 
as there was no cellar, and the rocky formation would have precluded 
excavating one. 

It was a low, steep-roofed building, thirty feet long and twentj^-four 
feet wide, with nine-feet posts, covered with wide rabbeted boards one 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 79 

inch thick. It stood on a side hill above the road, the rear resting on 
the ground, and the front supported by sections of Chestnut logs, three 
to four feet in diameter, lying diagonally under the corners. A huge 
chestnut butt, set up perpendicularly at the front door, with a series of 
steps cut crosswise of the timber, gave access to the ground floor. Oppo- 
site the door was the pulpit or rostrum, three to four feet high. The 
seats were rough planks or slabs with legs at the ends inserted in augur 
holes. Originally there was no Moor overhead; but as more room was 
required to accommodate the worshippers, joists were inserted in the cross 
beams, and boards laid down loosely for a floor, except on a space of nine 
feet square, over the rostrum. This was the gallery. Access was gained 
to it by a plank ladder outside, at one of the ends of the building ascend- 
ing to a door in the gable. The interior was neither ceiled nor plas- 
tered. The space beneath the building was open on three sides, affording 
a shade and shelter for vagrant sheep, pigs, and calves. 

In this primitive edilice our fathers worshipped summer and winter for 
seventeen years, with no warming apparatus but the foot stoves of the 
women, and the sound doctrine of the minister. Two choristers to lead 
the singing, and two readers to line the psalms were regularly appointed 
at each annual meeting. 

Near this church edifice there appears to have been another religious 
building peculiar to New England in the last and early in the present 
century, called a Sabbath-day House, or, as spelled in the one of the two 
instances in which it occurs in our records, a " Saba-day House." It is 
first mentioned in a vote of temporary adjournment of a Society meeting 
in December, 1761, probably by reason of the extreme cold in the meet- 
ing house. The second mention of it is in the survey of the road form- 
ally laid out and established in 1772, along the line of the bridle path 
which had previously been the only means of access to the meeting house, 
in which two prominent land marks are "a birch tree near a saw-mill, 
then N. 13 E. to a Sabbath-day house." Such buildings were erected 
by individuals living distant from [daces of worship for the accommoda- 
tion of their families before and during the intervals of worship in the 
inclement weather of winter. They were generally long, low buildings 
of two apartments, with a fire place in each attached to one chimney. 
A supply of fuel was provided in the fall. Some member of the 
family or families owning those apartments went forward early on the 
Sunday morning and made up the fires, and the rest of the parties 
followed in such season as to thoroughly warm themselves before going 
into meeting. At the noon intermission, they returned to their rooms, 
warmed themselves, and such homely fare as they had brought with them, 
ate their dinners, discussed the morning sermon, and returned to the 
afterooon exercise; at the close of which they again warmed themselves 



80 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

at the fires, and returned to their distant homes with a far better appreci- 
ation of their Sabbath worship than could otherwise have been enjoyed.* 

Such buildings, nearly unknown to the present generation, are well 
remembered by the aged people of New England. Probably some of 
them still exist in retired parishes. There were two or more of them in 
a dilapidated state near the Carmel Meeting House, eight miles north of 
New Haven, as late as 1820. There were one or more of them attached 
to the old Town Hill Meeting House in New Hartford until after the 
secession of the Northenders not far from 1830, in which the compiler 
was hospitably entertained in 1822, during the interval of worship on 
one of the coldest winter days of that year. The pleasant memory of 
the refreshing warmth of that snug little room, contrasted with the shiver- 
ing exercise of the unwarmed old barn-like house of worship and the 
freezing solemnities at the grave of a deceased classmate, on a still higher 
elevation, renders the old Sabaday House worthy of special notice as one 
of the by-gone institutions of New England. 

In the early part of this century, the Old Meeting House was removed 
by the owners of the land on which it stood, to the rear of the new store 
of Theron Bronson, Esq., at Winchester Center, where it stood in the 
last stage of dilapidation, having served for some fifty years as a barn, 
until Sunday, June 9th, 1867, when it was blown down in a violent 
thunder storm. 

* Prior to the late centennial, a diversity of opinion was found to exist among the 
residents of "Old Winchester," in respect to the precise location of this meeting 
house. There was no one of them who had seen it before its removal to another loca- 
tion, and apparently not understanding of the requirements of the ancient records in 
reference to its location above quoted, and other records of a dwelling house once 
owned by Reuben Miner, and located onthe east side of the road, " near the meeting 
house." This was the only dwelling ever erected in that vicinity. The location of 
the ancient saw-mill is ascertainable, and not many rods west of it, is the trace of an 
ancient sunken northerly and southerly road, along the center of which is a modern 
stone wall. On the east side of this road track, and in a northwesterly direction from 
the saw-mill site, are the undoubted traces of the site of a dwelling house and garden, 
such as a continued growth of "live-for-ever," and traces of cellar walls, with frag- 
ments of ancient bricks, such as might have been used in constructing the oven. The 
stones in the wall immediately west of this location are more angular and square than 
in other places, and were probably taken from the old chimney stack and foundations 
of the house. The land on the west side of this old road, near this chimney place, 
slopes down from the west in the manner required by the traditions of a meeting house 
resting its rear sills on the ground, and raised to a level in front by the large logs under 
the corners, and the steps cut into a stump under the front door. 

The location adopted by the centennial committee, and on which they placed a stone 
monument and flagstaff, is on the top of an eminence several rods west of where the 
road must have run, and some forty rods northerly or northwesterly from the spot 
indicated by the record land marks. As a fancy location, it would be preferable to 
what is here claimed to be the true one : but authenticated facts do not warrant its 
selection. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

INCORPORATION AND ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWN. 

At the Society meeting on the first Monday of March, 1771, it was 
voted to petition the Assembly for a town corporation. The Petition 
prepared and sent in to the May session of that year is as follows : 

To the Honorable General Assembly to be holden at Hartford on the sec- 
ond Tuesday of May next, 

The memorial of Seth Hills and John Hills, inhabitants of the Eccle- 
siastical Society lately established in the Township of Winchester, and 
the rest of the inhabitants of said society humbly showeth ; 

That your Honors, at your session at Hartford, in May, 1768, did 
make ;iiid establish a distinct Ecclesiastical Society in said Winchester, 
and were also graciously pleased to grant a tax of one penny half-penny 
upon the acre of all the lands within the limits of said society ; as well 
to those of non-resident proprietors as others for the term of three years, 
toward the support of the Gospel ministry in said society (which term 
is now expired), and the moneys arisen by virtue of said tax have, been 
duly expended for the purpose for which they were granted; by means 
whereof the lands lying within the limits of said society, and especially 
those near the center thereof, are much increased in price, and some 
almost or quite, doubled, which lands near the center chiefly belong to 
non-resident proprietors, who have received by far the greatest benefit in 
the rise of lands by means of said premises: yet so it is that all of the 
lands in -aid Township have been laid out for the sole use and benefit of 
the Proprietors, without appropriating any part thereof for the support 
of the Gospel, or schools, or any other pious or public uses whatever ; as 
has been usual and customary in many towns lying in the northwesterly 
part of this colony, which were formerly granted to the Proprietors of 
the towns of Hartford and Windsor, excepting only some little part re- 
served for highways, which is by no means sufficient to answer the pur- 
pose, even for necessary highways at present, but many more must in a 
short time be purchased at the expense of the inhabitants. 

Your Memorialists would further beg leave to observe to your Honors, 
11 



82 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

that the number of families at present in the limits of said society amount 
to twenty-eight, and the number of souls to 179. and that there are but four 
at present who live within the limits of said Township, but which also 
live without the limits of said society ; and that the greatest part of your 
Memorialifts are under very low circumstances ; as they laid out a chief 
part of what they had towards purchasing their lands of the Proprietors 
at a much greater price than they otherwise would have given, upon a 
full expectation that they should be assisted by the non-resident Proprie- 
tors by way of general tax upon all the lands tor the purpose of building 
a Meeting House, settling a minister, &c, as has been heretofore done in 
some of the new townships ; and that your Memorialists have been at 
very great expense since their settlement in said township in the sup- 
porting of schools, building of mills and bridges, and in purchasing and 
making of highways, as well as in clearing and cultivating their lands, a 
very considerable part of which is rough, and the residue very heavy 
timbered : By means whereof, they are not able at present, (without 
some assistance) to build a Meeting House, settle a minister, support 
proper schools, &c, which they are very desirous of doing, that they 
might be enabled to attend upon institutions and ordinances of the Gos- 
pel themselves, but also to bring up their children in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord, which cannot be otherwise obtained by reason of 
their distance from any other place of public worship. 

Your Memorialists would further beg leave to inform your Honors that 
they are under many similar inconveniences and difficulties, by reason of 
not having town privileges among themselves. 

Thereupon your Memorialists humbly pray your Honors to take their 
unhappy circumstances into your wise consideration, and to grant a tax 
(for such time and sum as to your Honors wisdom shall seem meet) upon 
all the lands lying within the limits of said Society, as well those belong- 
ing to the resident population as others, for the purpose, and to be im- 
proved in building a Meeting House, and settling a minister in said 
Society, or to be collected and laid out and improved according to the 
direction of your Honors ; and that your Honors would also make, incor- 
porate and establish the inhabitants living within the limits of said Town- 
ship of Winchester into one distinct and entire town, with all the powers 
and privileges that other towns by law have, and do enjoy, or under such 
particular limitations and restrictions as to your Honors may seem just 
and reasonable. And your Memorialists as in duty bound shall ever 
pray, &c. 

Dated at Winchester, this 4th day of April, 1771. 

ADAM MOTT, DAVID GOEF, 

JOSEPH HOSKIN, REUBEN TUCKER, 

LEMUEL STANNARD, JR., OLIVER COE, 



INCORPORATION AND ORGANIZATION. 83 

ABRAM FILLEY, BERIAH HILLS, 

ROBERT MACUNE, BENONI HILLS, 

JONATHAN ALVORD, AARON COOK, 

JOSIAH AVERIT, BENJAMIN PALMER, 

WARHAM GIBBS, JESSE WILKINSON, 

ELIPHAZ ALVORD, JOEL BEACH. 

In compliance with the prayer of this Memorial, the Assembly at the 
May Session, 1771, Resolved as follows: 

" That a tax of two pence on the acre annually, for two years from 
the last day of May, 1771, be granted on all the lands in said Society ; — 
and that said Township of Winchester, with all the inhabitants thereof 
be, and they are hereby declared to be one distinct and entire town ; with 
all the rights, powers and privileges, and subject to the same rules and 
orders, and to be under the same regulations as other towns in this colony 
have, enjoy, and are subject to." 

Under this corporate act, the first Town Meeting was held, the Record 
of which is as follows : 

At a Town Meeting of the Inhabitants of Winchester, lawfully assem- 
ble] mi Monday the "22d day of July, 1771. 

Wai'ham Gibhs chosen Moderator of sd. meeting. 

Eliphaz Alvord chosen Town Clerk, and sworn. 

Jonathan Alvord and Seth Hills, and Samuel Wetmore, Jr., chosen 
Townsmen. 

Robert Mackune chosen Treasurer. 

Warham Gibbs chosen Constable. 

Abram Filley chosen Grand Jury Man. 

Oliver Coe and Noah Glea-on and David GofF chosen Surveyors of 
Highways. 

Josiah Averit and Joseph Hoskin chosen Fence Viewers. 

Beriah Hills and David Austin and Jonathan Coe chosen Listers. 

Robert Mackune chosen Leather Sealer. 

Adam Mott and Benoni Hills chosen Ty thing Men. 

Voted, that David Austin's cow yard be a pound for the present. 

Voted, that a Maple tree near the Meeting House shall be a sign-post. 

David Austin chosen Key-keeper. 

Voted, that the Annual Town Meeting in this Town shall be on the 
first Monday of December at nine of the clock in the morning, at the 
Meeting House of said Town, and that the Selectmen shall set up a noti- 
fication on the Sign-post twelve days before the said first Monday for sd. 
meeting. 

Test, ELIPIIAZ ALVORD, Town Clerk. 



84 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

The settlements of the town thus organized were all embraced within 
the limits of the first, or " Old Society " of Winchester, with the exception 
of four families along the old north road, running across the extreme 
northeast corner of the town, a section which had little, if any community 
of interest with the original settlements. As set forth in the memorials of 
1768 and 1771, the physical conformation of the township was such as to 
preclude free mutual intercourse between the two sections. South of the 
long lake, mountainous ridges extend to the borders of Torrington, the 
old south road entering the town from the southeast at a point westward 
of these ridges. The long lake thence extends northerly to a point near 
the center of the town, where it approaches within a quarter of a mile of 
the Little Pond which extends half a mile further north, at which point 
the mountain range on the west side of Mad River commences, and 
extends northerly to Colebrook. Prior to 1780 it is believed there was 
no road across this barrier. The communication through the town 
between the old north and old south roads was by a crooked and difficult 
bridle path across the Still River and Mad River valleys, thence winding 
around between the two ponds and up the dugway to the highest eleva- 
tion of the town above the Deacon Alvord place, and thence to the 
center of Old Winchester. 

The most feasible lauds in the town were west of this barrier. The 
first settlers came largely from Torrington and Goshen, and settled along 
the borders of those towns, or along the old south road already described. 
None of them were rich, and most of them had scant means to purchase 
the small tracts of uncleared, heavy timbered lands they occupied. 

In a former chapter we have alluded to the unshapely and inconve- 
nient lots set out to the smaller proprietors, the scant reservations of land 
for highways, and their unavailability to a great extent by reason of 
improper location, the want of reservations for the endowment of schools, 
and the reservations to their own resident clergymen instead of grants 
for the support of religious institutions of the impoverished and benighted 
settlers. Add to these drawbacks the withholding of their lands from 
sale by the larger proprietors, that their value might be enhanced by the 
improvement of lands of adjoining resident proprietors, and the exemp- 
tion of their lands from taxation in aid of the outlays for roads, bridges, 
ministers, churches, and schools. Considering all these hindrances, and 
adding to them the hardships and privations of pioneer life, it is not surpris- 
ing that at the twentieth anniversary of Caleb and Joel Beach's advent 
the number of resident families in the town were less than 180. 

It is rather a wonder that any but outlaws should have resorted to a 
region so forlorn alike in its physical characteristics and proprietary 
management. None but the toughest of the puritan Anglo-Saxon race 
could have made headway against such impediments. 



INCORPORATION AND ORGANIZATION. 



85 



Names of settlers not a few appeal* on the land records, who, after a 
short buffeting with hardships and discouragements retired from the 
forbidding field, and large numbers of others fied to the rich lands of 
Western New York as soon as they became accessible. 

The names of those who participated in the organization of the town, 
as tar as it is possible to ascertain them, and their prior residence, are as 
follows : — 



JONATHAN ALVORD, 
ELIPHAZ ALVORD, 
DAVID AUSTIN, 
JOSIAH AVERED, 
BENJAMIN BENEDICT, 
JOHN BRADLEY, 
OLIVER COE, 
JONATHAN COE, 
AARON COOK, 
NATHANIEL DUTTON, 
ABRAM FILLEY, 
NOAH GLEASON, 
WARHAM GIBBS, 
DAVID GOFF, 
THOMAS HOSMER, Junior, 
SETH HILLS, 
BERIAH HILLS, 
BENONI HILLS, 
JOSEPH HOSKIN, 
JOHN HILLS, (?) 
SIMEON LOOMIS, 
ROBERT McEWEN, 
ADAM MOTT, 
ADAM MOTT, Junior, 
EBENEZER PRESTON, 
ENOCH PALMER, 
DANIEL PLATT, (?) 
LEMUEL STANNARD, 
REUBEN TUCKER, 
SAMUEL WETMORE, Junior, 
JOHN WRIGHT, Junior, 
JESSE WILKINSON, 
LEWIS WILKINSON, 



from Chatham. 

do. 
" Suttield. 

" Woodbury (Bcthlem). 
" Danbury. 
" Unknown. 
" Torrington. 

do. 

do. 
" Woodbury. 
" Torrington. 
" Unknown. 
" Litchfield. 
" Unknown. 
" Hartford. 
" Torrington. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 
" Stratford. 
" Windsor. 

do. 
" Wallingford. 
" Farmington. 
" Danbury. 
" Unknown. 
" Bolton. 

" Middletown (Middlefield ). 
" Wethersfield. 
" New Millord. 

do. 



This list comprises five more names than the number of families stated 
to be residents of the Society in the petition dated April 4, 1771, but it 
can hardly be doubted that all these, if not some four or five others, were 
inhabitants and voters on the 22d of July following. Some of them 
may have come in during the intervening time, or may not yet have 
become heads of families. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND SETTLEMENT OF FIRST PASTOR 

Immediately after the organization of the town, during the same year, 
the Congregational Church of Winchester was gathered. We copy the 
original minutes as follows : 

" The Church of Christ in Winchester was gathered by the Rev. 
Messrs. Roberts of Torrington, and Robbins of Norfolk, October 30, 
A. D. 1771." 

The Confession of Faith, which they assented to and adopted as their 
rule for admission of members, &c, is as follows, viz : 

" You, and each of you do believe the articles of y c Christian faith as 
contained in y c Scriptures of y e old and new Testament, particularly. 

" 1. You believe that there is one only living and true God in three 
persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, y' great Creator, Preserver, and 
Governor of y e world. 

" 2. You believe that God did make man in His own image, consisting 
in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, but man, by his disobedience, 
has fallen from that holy and happy state, and plunged himself into a 
State of Sin and misery, and of which he is unable to recover himself, 
and in wh. he might have been justly left of God, to perish forever. 

" 3. You believe that God, out of his mere goodness, has opened a new 
way of life to a fallen, guilty, sinful world, by wh. the mediation of 
[his] own Son, Jesus Christ, who has offered up himself a sacrifice of 
atonement to God for y e sins of y world, and that all are invited to put 
their trust in him and return to God through him, and that there is no 
salvation in any other way. 

" 4. You believe that mankind, in their present fallen State, are dead in 
Sins, and so contrary to God and averse to a reconciliation, that without the 
special influence of divine grace, they will never savingly hearken to and 
comply with y gospel call ; so that y Conversion and Salvation of Sinners 
is only owing to y e distinguishing sovereignty of God. 

" 5. You believe that altho. we are justified by faith, and saved by 
grace, yet the law, as a rule of life, remains in full force to believers ; so 
that perfect holiness of heart and life is their duty ; nor does the gospel 
of free grace in any sort Countenance or incourage them to live in 
y e least Sin. 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH. 87 

"6. You believe that all true saints shall persevere and finally be re- 
covered by y e grace of God, to perfect holiness and happiness — and be 
perfectly happy in y e enjoyment of the blessed God to all eternity, while 
the wicked and impenitent shall go away into everlasting punishment." 

The above being publicly and unanimously owned and assented to by all 
those hereafter named, — they then, after solemn prayer, entered into a 
Covenant with God, and with one another, to walk in Christian fellow- 
ship and all the ordinances of the Gospel. 

The form of the Covenant here follows : 

" A COVENANT. 

" You, and each of you, do now, in the presence of God, Angels and 
men, solemnly chuse and avouch the Lord Jehovah to be your God, 
taking Jesus Christ 10 be your otdy redeemer, and the Holy Spirit 
to be your sanctifyer, — and do give up yourselves, souls and bodies, to be 
the Lords, with yours, — and you do Covenant & ingage faithfully to 
•serve him in all the ways of his appointment, — seeking his glory as 
your last * * * * You sincerely promise, by assistance ol divine grace, 
that you will deny all ungodliness and every worldly lust, and live sober- 
ly in y l world, — and renouncing Sin, Satan and world, do bind your- 
selves to walk together in christian fellowship and Communion, in all the 
Ordinances of the Gospel, — and that you will watch over one another and 
your fellow-members in meekness and in love, — and submit yourselves 
to the discipline and government of Christ in this Church, in the admin- 
istration and services of it, — so far as you are therein directed by y' un- 
erring word of God." 

The Covenant being exhibited, the following persons publicly owned 
and assented to it, and were thereupon declared to be a visable church of 
Jesus Christ, viz : 

WIDOW MARY LOOMIS, LENT MOTT, 

WIDOW HANNAH AVERIT, ABRAHAM FILLEY, 

DINAH, WIFE OF WM. FILLY, ROBERT MACITNE, 

JOHN HILLS, JOSEPH PRESTON, 

SETH HILLS, MARY PRESTON, 

ADAM MOTT, AMY, wife of JOEL BEACH, 

ABIAH MOTT, ELIZABETH AGARD. 

"After y e Church was gathered, y' following persons were admitted 
members in full Com", with the Church, viz : 

DAVID AUSTIN, 
MARY AUSTIN, 
MARY WILKINSON, 
MARY GOFFE, 
MERCY FILLEY. 



88 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

" The Church then proceeded to, and made choice of Robert Macune 
to be the Moderator or Clerk of this church, 
" Attest, 

"NATH 1 . ROBERTS, Pastor of f Ch., Torrington, 

" A. R. ROBBINS, Pastor of Ch., Norfolk." 

The cursory reader of these annals will be very likely to pass over 
this record as a mere form, without significance in its bearing on the des- 
tinies of the newly organized community. While he recognizes the im- 
portance of a social compact, such as the heterogeneous gathering of 
settlers had just adopted for their civil guidance, he little realizes the 
vitalizing principle imparted by a humble band of believers walking in 
Christian fellowship, and in the ordinances of the gospel. It is this inner 
life of a town or state that determines its character and destinies. If 
strong and vigorous, healthful morals prevail; if feeble, vices are toler- 
ated ; if dead, anarchy succeeds to order, and licentiousness becomes 
rampant. 

The following members were added to the church prior to the ordina- 
tion of its first pastor in 1772. 

Nov. 3, 1771, Warham Gibbs and Eunice his wife, by profession. 

Jan. 19, 1772, Ebenezer Preston, by letter from ch. at Torrington. 
Martha Preston (his wife) " " Harwinton. 

" " Eliphaz Alvord " " Chatham. 

" " " Esther Alvord (his wife) " " 

Feb. 10, " (apt, Jon. Alvord " " « 

" " " David Goff, by profession. 

July 26, " Samuel Wetmore and Anna his wife, by letter from 
Middlefield. 

July 26, 1772, Simeon Loomis, by profession. 

The records of the society show that endeavors were made, both before 
and after the gathering of the church, to secure a permanent minister. 
Mr. Peter Starr, afterwards the life-long minister of Warren, was invited 
to preach, on probation, in July, 1771. A Mr. Hale was employed four 
" Saboths"; a Mr. Potter was invited, on probation, in Sept. 1771, and 
in case he could not come, a call, on probation, was voted to Mr. Judson ; 
and it was also voted to have Doctor Bellamy of Bethlem, and Rev. 
Mr. Robbins of Norfolk, act for them in hiring a candidate " that they 
think will sute the society." Sept. 30, 1771, it was left " with the comity 
to hire a candidate as they shall think best, but not to hire one that is 
Determined not to settle." Oct. 31, 1771, the committee was directed to 
"apply to Mr. Jonson to supply us six Saboths." Feb. 13, 1772, it was 
voted " that the society will give Mr. Sam 11 Jonson amedeat call for a 
settlement. Feb. 17th following, the committee were directed to apply 



SETTLEMENT OF PASTOR. 89 

to Mr. Brooks to supply for three Sabbaths; and on the 31st March fol- 
lowing, an application was voted to Mr. Napp to supply for six Sabbathsj 
and tbe committee was directed to go or send after him. July 10th, fol- 
lowing, "Mr. Nap])" was applied to to preach twelve Sabbaths on pro- 
bation. 

Sept. 23, 1772, it was voted "that the Society will give Mr. Joshua 
Napp a call for a settlement in the ministry amongst us" — and a settle- 
ment was proposed of £200, payable in instalments, and a salary begin- 
ning at £35. and increasing £5 annually, until it should reach £65, which 
was modified so that it should increase in proportion to the increase of 
the giand lev}', until it should reach £65. The first Thursday in Novem- 
ber was fixed on for the ordination, and it was voted that the Council 
should meet at Robert Macune's, and that he should provide for them, 
and that John Hills, Samuel Wetmore, Jr., Enoch Palmer, Ebenezer 
Preston, Oliver Coe and John Bradley should keep houses of Entertain- 
ment for Ordination. By a subsequent vote, Mr. Knapp was allowed i<> 
invite his friends to Robert Macune's, upon the society's cost. 

No record appears of the action of the church in calling Mr. Knapp. 
The entry of his Ordination in the church records in his own hand is as 
follows : 

November 11, A. D. 1772. 

This day 1 was ordained to y e pastoral charge of y Church of Christ 
in Winchester. The whole Association were sent to by letters missive. 
Present the Rev'd Messrs. 

Dr. BELLAMY, [of Bethlem.] 

Mr. ROBBERTS, [" Torrington.| 

Mr. LEE, [ " Salisbury.] 

Mr. BRINSMAID. [ " Washington.] 

Mr. FARRAND, [".Canaan.] 

Mr. CANFIELD, [ " New Milford.] 

Mr. NEWEL, I " Goshen.] 

Mr. BENEDICT, | " Woodbury.] 

Mr. DAY, I " New Preston.] 

Mr. BOBBINS, | " Norfolk.] 

Mr. HART, [ " North Canaan.] 

Mr. STAR, J " Warren | 

with these delegates, also a delegate from Torringford. 

Mr. Benedict made y first prayer, Mr. Robbins preached \ sermon, — 
Mr. Farrand made y" ordaining prayer, — Dr. Bellamy gave y" charge,— 
Mr. Hart y' right hand of fellowship, — Mr. Day made y concluding 

prayer, the whole was performed with y' greatest Decency and 

Solemnity. 

Test, 

JOSHUA KNAPP, Pastor. 
12 



90 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

We copy from Rev. Mr. Marsh's Commemorative Sermon, the follow- 
ing notice of Mr. Knapp : 

" Rev. Joshua Knapp, — a native of Danbury, graduated at Yale Col- 
lege in 1770, — wa's ordained Nov. 11, 1772, — and dismissed Oct 13, 1789. 
He was a ready and easy speaker. Few ministers possessed a happier 
talent at extemporaneous speaking. This operated somewhat unhappily 
in his case, as it has in others, by becoming a temptation to neglect that 
application to study and mental discipline which is essential to a minis- 
ter's bringing forth out of his treasures things new and old. 

Subsequent to his dismission, Mr. Knapp preached at North Canaan, 
New Hartford and Milton, in this county. From Milton he removed to 
Hamilton, Madison Co., N. Y., where he preached a considerable time, 
and from thence removed to Torrington, where he spent his old age in the 
family of his son-in-law, Deacon Abel Hinsdale. Occasionally he visited 
the people of his former charge, and as health permitted, preached to 
them. He departed this life March 23, 1816, in the 72d year of his age, 
and the 11th of his ministry. His grave is in this parish, among those 
of his early charge, who have finished their earthly course. A marhle 
slab, erected by his friends in this place, marks the spot where his re- 
mains await the summons of the Archangel's trump. Previous to his 
settlement in Winchester, Mr. Knapp married Mary Keyes, a worthy and 
excellent lady, from the eastern part of Massachusetts. They had two 
sons and three daughters, most of whom are deceased. Mrs. K. survived 
her husband a few years, and while visiting friends in New Marlboro', 
Mass., became sick, and died at that place at the age of about 72." 

The besetting sin of our first minister, as hinted by his worthy succes- 
sor, was constitutional weariness. He is said to have tripped and fallen, 
while leisurely walking across his floor, with no impediment in his way, 
and thereby broken his leg. Want of thrift was an element of his char- 
acter incident to his torpidity. He could not eke out his support from 
the scanty salary of ministers of that day. On one occasion he called 
together the society's Committee and Deacons, and set forth to them his 
privations, and his need of a more adequate support, closing with the 
remark that they ought to so provide for him that he could live as com- 
fortably as Parson Rolibins, who was a model of economy and good 
living. Good Deacon Hills replied to this remark, — "Mr. Knapp, if we 
should put a barrel, full of dollars, behind your buttery door, you couldn't 
live as Mr. Robbins does, for it ain't in you." 

This trait of his character, however, did not impair his linn adherence 
to principle in his pastoral duties. The churches in that day ahounded 
with half-way covenant members, an anomalous class of professors, who 
had found their way into the Christian folds in the lax state of religion 
prevailing at the middle of the last century. Mr. Knapp seems to have 



SETTLEMENT OF PASTOR. \\\ 

set his face against these interlopers, and to have barred their entrance 
so the new church under his charge. Heart-burnings grew out of his 
somewhat arbitrary exercise of pastoral prerogative; an opposition grew 
up, not only to him, but to the church; which opened :i way for Meth- 
odism, then in its infancy, to obtain a footing in the parish. As a conse- 
quence the growth of the church, though perhaps more pure and healthy, 
was slow, and the influence of the pastor was undermined. 



CHAPTER X. 

1771 to 1775 RESUME AND NEW SETTLERS. 

Beginning our annals with the hasty vote of the Colonial Assembly 
granting to Hartford and Windsor nearly all the unoccupied territory of 
the Colony, ostensibly for a single plantation, but really to place it beyond 
the grasp of the usurping Governor Andros, we have traced step by step 
the long controversy growing out of this ill-advised and unperfected* 
grant. We have seen these powerful towns assuming a vested ownership, 
first of the large township of Litchfield, and then of the whole territorial 
grant, thereby repudiating the implied, but doubtless understood, trust 
incident to the grant when made. We have viewed, with a modified 
sympathy, the awkward predicament of the Assembly when attempting to 
resume its control of the lands in the face of its semi-fraudulent grant ; 
and with no sympathy at all, the persistent efforts of those pampered 
towns to hold their ill-gotten domain ; especially the portion of it remain- 
ing after their appropriation of the large township of Litchfield by metes 
and bounds, thereby determining the extent of the " Plantation," provided 
for in the grant. We have followed the windings and turnings of sharp 
practice, by which the Assembly was finally badgered into a division of 
the remaining territory between the rightful owners and the unscrupulous 
claimants; a division securing to the latter 139,778 acres of land, which 
of right belonged as a common property to all the inhabitants of the 
colony. 

We have detailed the sub-divisions of these lands until our own town- 
ship fell into the hands of the niggardly " Proprietors of Winchester," and 
have seen how the long-delayed sub-division to individual proprietors was 
so made as to preclude any concerted measures for its settlement, and to 
withhold all inducement to that end, which the customary reservation of 
lands for religious and educational purposes would have held out to set- 
tlers. We have searched out the squatters who, after waiting in vain for 
an allotment of thejr individual rights, had selected their own locations ; 
and have made ourselves acquainted, as far as possible, with the succeed- 

* No patent of this territory was ever issued by the Assembly to these towns. 



NEW SETTLERS. 93 

ing pioneers — have ascertained whence they came, where they lived, and 
how they fared. We have seen the distinctive elements aggregate and 
crystallize into a religious society and a civil commonwealth. 

But as yet the settlement of the town has only begun. All the inhab- 
itants, with the exception of some half dozen families, are located on and 
west of the old South Country Road, a section not exceeding one-sixth 
part of the township. The whole population, as stated in the petition of 
April 4th. 1771, is twenty eight families and 179 souls within the society 
of Winchester, and only four families without the society and within the 
town. The " Danbury Quarter," embracing the four half-mile tiers in the 
northwest corner of the town, is, as yet, nearly unoccupied. The four 
families located without the society are on the North Country Road, at 
the northeast corner of the town, and will be again referred to. 

The slow growth of a remote country town affords few events that can 
interest others than those connected with it by personal or parental resi- 
dence. To each and all of these, it is hoped that the minute details em- 
bodied in these annals will furnish some matters of interest and instruc- 
tion, and that their affectionate regard for their fatherland or residence 
will lead them to appreciate our labors. 

We propose to continue our History, if it can be so dignified, mainly 
in the form of annals, embracing in each year its public events, and 
accessions of inhabitants, with such biographical and genealogical notices 
as our scanty materials will afford, leaving the settlement of Winsted to 
be separately treated. 

1772. 

We find in the records of town meetings during this year, no votes or 
proceedings of special interest. The customary town officers were chosen, 
and a tax of " one penny half-penny on the pound " was laid. 

The following new inhabitants are found on the records of this year, in 
Old Winchester Society : Thomas Spencer, Alexander Leach, John Corey, 
Levi Bronson, Roswell Coe, Elisha Smith, Samuel Hurlbut, and Reuben 
Thrall. 

Thomas Spencer, from Saybrook, this year moved on to the farm 
recently purchased of Bronson and Munsill by Rufus Eglestone, lying 
north of his homestead, and bordering on (lie west side ol the Long Pond 
south of Sucker Brook. The house which he built and occupied (luring 
his remaining life, remained standing until the winter of 1862-3, and then 
yielded to the wintry blasts. He was a prominent man of the town, and 
nine of his children became heads of large and influential families; but, 
of more than twenty of his descendants now residing in this town, not one 



94 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

bears the name of Spencer. He was born January 16th, 1736, O. S. ;* 
married April 10th, 1760, Phebe Grenell, born July 20th, 1736, O. S. ; 
he died May 1st, 1807, aged 71 ; she died October 2d, 1812. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Phebe, b. April 20, 1761 ; m. Rev. John Sweet. 

II. John, b. October 18, 1762. 

III. Chloe, b. December 15, 1764; d. May 16, 1767. 

IV. Thomas, b. November 19, 1766. 
V. Grenell, b. September 9, 1768. 

" VI. Chloe, b. December 4, 1770; m. Oliver Coe. 

VII. Charlotte, b. April 4th, 1773; m. Jonathan Coe, Jr. 
VIII. Candace, b, June 14, 1775; m. January 17, 1798, Ashbel Munson, of 

Waterbury. 
IX. Sylvia, b. April 12th, 1778; m. Dr. T. S. Wetmore. 

X. Hcldah, b. October 1, 1780; m. John Wetmore, 2d. 

John Spencer, 2 oldest son of Thomas, 1 in 1784 bought of David 
Austin 39 acres of land in the heart of the West Village of Winsted, 
embracing all of Main street from Camp's Block southerly and easterly 
to Clifton Mill Bridge, and the whole of High street, Elm street, the 
Green Woods Park and adjacent streets. He entered on this purchase, 
cleared a few acres, and built a loghouse, on the flat near the corner of 
Elm and Main streets, before any bridge had been erected across Mad 
river at Lake street, or any road opened south of the bridle path now 
known as Hinsdale street. Despairing of ever having access by a road 
and bridge to the civilized part of the town, and unwilling to rear a family 
in this savage region, he sold his purchase for three dollars an acre, and 
bought a two hundred acre farm in Danbury Quarter, lately owned by 
Edward Rugg. then a well-populated section of the town, on which he 
lived until 1799. In 1800 he removed to Peacham, Caledonia county, 
Vermont, where he accumulated a fortune of $15,000, and lost it by be- 
coming surety for the sheriff of the county. He then removed to West- 
moreland, Oneida county, and after two years, again lost his all by the 
burning of his house. In 1816 he purchased a farm in the adjoining- 
town of Vernon, on which he resided until his death, February 14th, 
1826, aged 63. He married February 14th, 1793, Abigail, daughter of 
Abner Marshall, of Torrington, who died in 1849. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julius, b. Winchester, January 31, 1794; living in 1857 at 

Lisbon, 111. 



* Probably descended from Sergt. Jared Spencer, who died in Haddam in J685, 
through Thomas, who d. in Saybrook before 1703. See Godwin's Genealogical 
Notes, pp. 200 and 201. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 95 

II. Almeda, b. Winchester, April 19, 1795; m. Carter, of 

Worthipgton, 0. 

III. Geo. Grinnell, b. Winchester, November 17, 1796; living in 1857 at 

Lexington, Va. 

IV. Harlow, . b. in Vermont; d. at 23 years of age. 

V. Sylvia, b. " m. Marshall of Westmoreland, N. Y. 

VI. Wm. Scott, b. " of Warsaw, 111., in 1857. 

VII. Laura, b. in Vermont; m. — Green, of Westmoreland, N. Y. 

VIII. Orpha, b. " m. — Hiscoek of Kochester, N. Y. 

IX. John, b. " d. at the aye of 8 years. 

X. Franklin Augustus, recently Congregational Minister of New Hartford, 
Conn., now living in Clinton, N. Y. 
XI. Rilet, of Lexington, Ky., in 1857. 

Thomas Spkncer, 2 a millwright by trade, lived until about 1795, in a 
house that stood on the east side of the Dug-way road, nearly opposite a 
mad that turns west to Winchester Centre Village. In 179."). in company 
with Benjamin Jenkins and James Boy 1, he built the first forge in the 
town, on the "Old Forge Site," on which the grinding works of the Win- 
sted Manufacturing Company now stand. He also built a store in which 
In' l raded in company with Hewett Hills, on the depot grounds of the 
Connecticut "Western Railroad Company, on the north side of Lake street; 
and also the rear part of the tenant house on south side of Lake street, 
directly opposite the store building, in which he lived until his removal to 
Vernon, Oneida county, N. Y., about ISO I or '2. Lie died at Vernon, 
N. Y., about 1828. He married May 28th, 1795, Lucy, daughter of 
Hewitt, Hills. Their children were three sons, HilamoiV Thomas/ and 
Alpha,' ami six daughters, Clarissa," Lucy, 3 Sylvia, Huldah, 3 Elizabeth,' 
and Sahrina. 3 The two sons, Hilamon and Alpha, died between the ages 
of fifteen and twenty. AH the daughters, except Clarissa, were married. 
flic particulars of this and the preceding household were furnished by 
Rev. F. A. Spencer, of Clinton, N. Y. 

Captain Grinnell Spencer settled in Winsted, and first lived on 
a high hill about 100 rods west of the Spencer Street road, adjoining Ins 
original orchard, which can be seen from the west, village of Winsted. 

.About 1808 he built, and occupied until his death the house on Spencer 
Street road now owned and occupied by bis son in-law, Amos Pierre. 
He improved more than 200 acres of land as a. dairy farm, and for many 
years spent his winters in Charleston, S. C, as a dealer in cheese. He 
was an energetic, public-spirited, warm-hearted man, always the foremost 
to (urn out and break the winter roads, to attend upon the sick, or to 

.relieve ilie misfortunes of bis neighbors. Be died of a cancer March 5, 
1843, aged 7 1. He married first Abigail , who died August, 

2'.», 1811, and second Mrs. Case of Farmington, who survived him 

but a lew years, and died of the same disease. 



96 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN OF GRINNELL 2 AND ABIGAIL ( ) SPENCER. 

I. Matilda, b. ; m. Elisha Kilhourn. 

II. Harriet, b. ; m. first, Sheldon Norton of Bethany, Wayne 

Co., Pa., and second, Rufus Grinneli. 

III. Abigail, b. 1801 ; m. September 26, 1826, George Goodrich, 

d. September 13, 1828. 

IV. Phebe, b. ; m. Grinneli. 

V. Helen, b. ; m. Amos Pierce. 

Alexander Leach, a Scotchman, came from New Haven to Win- 
chester, and owned a farm in the Danbury Quarter, immediately north of 
the Edward Rugg farm. By his will, proved in Simsbury Probate Court, 
it would appear that he died in 1777, leaving Catharine, his wife 
(executrix), and Alexander, William, Catharine, and Elizabeth, their 
children. His wife is said to have been kidnapped from Holland when a 
child, and brought to this country. She died March 19, 1815, aged 80. 
Their daughter, Elizabeth, born January 18, 1774; married November 
16, 17.86, Nathan Brown. 

Alexander Leach, Junior, lived on the homestead as late as 1791. 

William Leach also lived on the homestead for many years, and 
afterwards in other parts of the town. He served in the continental 
army, and drew a pension. He died, probably, after 1830, leaving a .-on, 
Alva, and perhaps other children. He married March 24, 1783, Sarah 
Thompson. 

John Cokey, from Goshen, owned and occupied in 1772-3, a part of 
the W. F. Hatch farm on the Little Pond, and probably soon after left 
the town. 

Lieutenant Thomas Hurlbut, immigrant, ancestor of Captain 
Samuel Hurlbut of Winchester, belonged to the first company that gar- 
risoned the Fort at Saybrook in 1636. He served and was wounded in 
the Pequot War in 1637; settled in Wethersfield, and is supposed to 
have died soon after 1671. His wife was Sarah 

Stephen,' 2 fifth son of Lieutenant Thomas, 1 and Sarah Hurlbut, was 
born in Wethersfield about 1649, and there resided until 1690, after 
which no further record is found of him. He married, first, Dorothy 
, December 12, 1.678; second, Phebe 

Thomas, 3 son of Stephen,'-' and Dorothy Hurlbut, born in Wethersfield* 
January 28, L680, became a farmer and settled there. He married, 
January 11, 1705, Rebecca . He died April 10, 1761 ; she 

died March 22. 1760. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 97 

Amos, 4 son of Thomas 3 and Rebecca, born in Wethersfield, April 14, 
1717, settled there, and married June 10, 1742, Hannah Wright of 
Wethersfield, who died July ^5, 1756; he married, second, March 3, 
1757, Sarah Hill, who died in 1764 ; he married, third, March 10, 1766, 
Sarah Lattimer. He died in 1777 or earlier, administration having 
been granted on his estate February 22 of that year. He had by his 
first wife Hann Ji, Samuel, 1 born about 1746; married at Torrington, 
December 1. 1768, Rebecca Reach; by his second wife, ^arah Stephen, 5 
born in Wetherslield, December 12, 1760, and Martin, 5 baptized in 
• Wethersfield, June 12, 1763. 

Captain Samuel Hurlbut, 5 from Newington Society (Wethers- 
field), came from Torrington to Winchester, and first purchased, with his 
brother in-law, Levi Bronson, the Artemus Rowley farm, near Torring- 
ton line, in the third tier, from whence he removed in 1774 to the center, 
and built the red lean-to house which stood on the site of his grandson, 
Samuel Hurlbut's present dwelling, where he lived until his death, 
March 23, 1831, at the age of 83. He began the world as a carpenter 
and joiner, afterwards became a tavern-keeper, at a period when " The 
Land Lord " stood next in rank after the mini.-ter and merchant, at the 
same time managing a large farm and a saw mill ; and in later years 
engaged with his sons, Samuel and Lemuel, in country trade. 

He was a sedate, thinking, methodical man of great energy and thrift, 
the second magistrate of the town, and a representative in seventeen 
sessions of the General Assembly. 

In the words of Rev. Mr. Marsh, "he closed a useful life, after having 
lived in the parish fifty-nine years, and enjoyed a good share of respect 
and confidence as a magistrate, and in other departments of public 
business. Having been one of the earliest inhabitants, and having pur- 
chased a large quantity of land in the center of the parish, he did much 
to promote the settlement of the place, by disposing of his lands on so 
easy terms as to induce others to settle here. The public green and 
ground, on which the meeting house stood until recently, were given to 
the Society by him. He manifested great respect for the institutions of 
the Gospel, and gave some evidence of piety, though not a professor." 

From the town records and a memorandum in his handwriting, we 
compile the following account of his family : — 

Samuel Hurlbut,'' married in Torrington, December 1, 1768, Rebecca, 
daughter of Abel Beach. He died March 23, 1831, aged 83. Rebecca 
(his widow) died October 27, 1829, aged 84. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Silas, 6 b. July 6, 1769; died unmarried December 24, 1793. 

II. Leonard, 6 b. May 18, 1771. 
13 



98 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

ITT. Margaret, 6 h. March 2, 1773; m. John McAlpine. 

IV. Samuel, 6 b. March 13, 1775; d. October 4, 1776. 

V. Lucy, 6 b. October 6, 1777 ; m. May 12, 1797, Sylvester Hall of Burke, 

Vermont. 
VT. TJebeccx, 6 b. November 30, 1779; m. Church of Vernon, N. Y. 

VII. S^miel, 6 b. October 2, 1783. 
VIII. Lemuel, 6 b. September 20, 1785. 

Genkral Leonard Hurlbut," oldest son of Captain Samuel, lived 
and d ed in the house recently occupied by his son in-law, William H. 
Rood, about a mile northeasterly from Winchester Center. He was a 
large dairy farmer, and an unassuming, exemplary man. He married, 
October 17, 1708, Huldah Case. She died August 16, 1800, aged 23. 
He married, second, February 14, 180 7, Elizabeth, daughter of Daniel 
Hurlbut Cone, born January 29, 1784 ; died June 16, 1839. He died 
December 21, 1851, aged 81. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Hilamon, 7 b. October 14, 1799; d. about 1861, in Platte Co., Mis- 

souri. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

II. Sins, 7 b. Mav 16, 18< 6. 

III. Huldah, 7 b. February 7, 1808; d. January 25, 1818. 

IV. Leonard Beactt, 7 b. July 23, 1811 ; m. October 21, 1835, Sylvia, daughter 

of Dr. Truman S. Wetmore. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Sylvia Elizabeth, 8 b. September 29, 1840. 

2. Charlotte Jarvis, 8 b. September 13, 1845. 

V. Elizabeth Huldah," b. November 19, 1818; m. November 5, 1845, Wm. 

H. Rood. 

Samuel Hdrlbut, Junior, 6 second son of Captain Samuel, went into 
trade at Winchester Center in early life, with Chauncey Humphrey, and 
afterwards, in company with his bioher Lemuel, continued the business, 
until his death, at the age of 74. He was a man of good education and 
studious habits, a close applicant to his business, and a careful manager, 
rarely leaving home except to make his semi-annual purchases of goods, 
and never indulging in any useless expense or hazardous speculations. 
With these characteristics, and with the co-operaiion of his more ener- 
getic brother, an estate of more than $200,000 was accumulated and 
transmitted to their heirs. 

Mr. Hurlbut was a man rel ; giously educated and inclined, but not a 
professor; a supporter of good order and religious institutions; charitable 
to the poor, and occasionally liberal to public benefactions. The death 
of his younger brother, who had for so many years pushed forward the 
business which he had regulated, came upon him with stunning force. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 99 

His mind lost its balance. lie attempted to make a will, and after 
bequeathing legacies of live thousand dollars each to the Ameiican Bible, 
Home Missionary, and Tract Societies, and appointing executors, he 
executed the instrument, leaving the bulk of his estate to be legally 
divided to his heirs. He lived a consistent bachelor, and died at the age 
of 74, on the 22d day of October, 1857. 

Lemuel Hurlbut, 6 youngest child of Captain Samuel, 5 was endowed 
with a hardy constitution, a manly person, plea-ing address, and a 
sanguine temperament. His perceptive faculties predominated over his 
intellectual, and his tastes ran to fine animals and h'glily cultivated lands. 
Though a large trader, he was rarely seen at the desk or behind the coun- 
ter. His department of the business of the brothers, S. & L. Hurlbut, 
was to receive and market the ch> ese, of which they were extensive pur- 
chasers, and to cultivate and improve their lands. For more than thirty 
years he spent his winters at Baltimore in the sale of cheese which had 
during the fall been purchased from the dairy farmers of this region. His 
summers were occupied in superintending his farming operations, and in 
raising and improving domestic animals, for which he had a passionate 
fon Iness. His horses, sheep, and oxen were unsurpassed in excellence 
and beauty. About 1820, he introduced upon his tarrn the puie Devon 
breed of cattle, the first of th ; s beautiful and serviceable stock brought 
into the State. From his herd the breed has been largely diffused 
through the Northern and Western States. The unrivaled strings of 
pure red working oxen that gra e the agricultural lairs of this county, at- 
te.>t the valuable service he | erforrmd for the agri< ultural interest of this 
region; while the ample profits realized atie.-t his sagacity and thrift. 

During a period of seventy \ears from his birih, Mr. Hurl 1 ut had never 
been visited with sickness requiring the attendance of a doctor. In the 
fall of 18.")5, he came home trom the Mas achu-etts State Fair, suffering 
from a severe cold contracted during his absence, and aggravated by im- 
prudent exposure. After confinement to h s bed for one hundred da;s, 
his strong frame yielded to decay, and he expired February 19. 18 6, at 
the **ge of seventy and a half years. He m de a pr fe-sion of relig on, 
and united with the Congregational Church Mav 1, 18o3. lie married 
Ann H. Phelps, ot Norfolk ; she died July 18, 1807, a c ed 76. 

CI11LDIUN. 

I. Caroline, 7 b. May 20, 1811; in. October 24, 1832, John 

Rutherford, of Macon, Ga. 
II. Elizabeth Ann, 7 b. December 13,1813; m. June 23, 1838, Dr. John 

H. T. Cockey, of Frederick Co., Vid. 
III. Lemuel, 7 b March 8,1816; m. Florania, daughter of John 

Westlake. 



100 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

IV. Samuel, 7 b. January 12, 1818. 

V. Jeremiah Phelps, 7 b. January 16, 1821 ; d. January 27, 1821. 
VI. Rebecca, 7 b. March 9, 1826; m. June 7, 1848, Henry P. 

Chapman of Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Stephen Hdrlbut, 5 born December 12, 1760; half brother of 
Samuel, 5 from Wethersfield, Newington Society, came into the town 
about 1782; he bought and settled on a lot of land south of, and near, 
Rufus M. Eggleton's. At the time of his death, April 14, 1807, aged 
46, he resided in the farm house of Mrs. Boyd, on East Lake Street. 
He married Abigail Meeker ; she was born August 14, 1768, and died in 
1856. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sarah, 6 b. July 11, 178" ; m. Walter Dickinson; d. 1855. 

II. Eunice, 6 b. " 29, 1789 ; m. David Hubbard, of W. Hartford. 

III. Amos, 6 b. February 13, 1792; m. Eleanor Elmore. 

IV. Lucy, 6 b. April 21, 1794 ; m. Daniel Phelps, Jr. 
V. Mart, 6 b. August 27, 1796 ; m. Charles Clark. 

VI. Samuel, 6 b. October 31,1798; is known as Samuel Hurlbut, 2d; m. 
March 19, 1822, Lavinia Blake; she d. May 26, 1864, aged 63; he d. in 
the spring of 1872. 
Vn. Hcldah, 6 b. February 15, 1801 ; d. unm. October 31, 1830. 
VIII. Silas. 6 b. March 27, 1803 ; m. Ruth Goodwin. 

IX. Clarissa, 6 b. August 18, 1806; m. Sherman Goodwin. 

Martin Hdrlbut, 5 from Wethersfield, came, when a boy, to live with 
his half-brother, Captain Samuel, 6 and continued to re-ide in the town 
until his death, April 5, 1810, at the age of 47. He built and lived in 
the old part of the house, on the height of land a mile south of the Win- 
sted depot, known as the Pratt Hou-e, and now owned by James W. 
Ward, which he sold to Andrew Pratt in 1801 : after which he lived on 
South Street, in Winsted, until 1808, when he bought and occupied 
the farm on the easterly shore of Long Lake, now owned by his son and 
only child, Deacon Joseph W. Hurlbut. He married, September 10 
1787, Elizabeth Wheeler; she died May 27, 1849, aged 85. They had 
one child, 

Joseph Wheeler Hurlbut, 6 born July 20, 1793; m. April 25, 
1817, Sarah Merrill, born June 18,1794; daughter of Stephen. She 
died October 29, 1864, aged 70 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. James Martin, 7 b. January 5, 1818; d. August 14, 1847, unmarried. 
II. Josk.ph Merrill, 7 b. September 28, 1824; m. June 2, 1869, Anne Augusta 
Field. 
III. Warren PmNEAS/b. January 4, 1827. 
VI. Wm. Flowers, 7 b. " 27, 1835. 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 101 

Deacon Levi Bronson, from Berlin, married, October 25, 1769, 
Hannah Hurlbut, sister of Samuel, and came with him to Winchester. 
He built the Artemas Rowley house, in which he lived until about 1795, 
when he moved to Cattskill, New York. A cotemporary says of him: 
" Mr. Bronson was a large and prosperous farmer, and withal a mer- 
chant. His goods for trade he mainly bought of Sheldon Leavitt, of 
Bethlem. He made a large amount of potash. He was a prudent, 
straight-forward man in all his business. His store was in his dwelling- 
house, — the first, and for many years, the only store in the town. Up- 
right, kind, generous, and exemplary, he made his life adorn his religious 
profession. After he settled in Cattskill he engaged somewhat in navi- 
gation ; — and by it, lost money ; and afterwards, with property dimin- 
ished, he removed to Vernon, Oneida County, New York, where he spent 
his remaining days." He married, October 25, 1769, Hannah Hurlbut. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Levi, b. July 30, 1770; d. April 18, 1775. 

II. Lemuel, b. Oct. 2.3, 1772; d. March 6, 1775. 

III. David, b. Dec. 23, 1774. 

IV. Levi, b. May 15, 1777. 
V. Hannah, b. July 21, 1784. 

VI. Lcct, b. Dec. 9, 1786. 

VII. Sarah, b. Nov. 28, 1789. 

Captain Roswell Coe came from Torrington and bought a farm in 
the southwest part of the town, which he occupied until his sale of the 
same to John Lucas in 1789, when he returned to Torrington. 

Elisha Smith, Esq., from Torrington, bought of Enoch Palmer, the 
Noble J. Everitt place, about a hundred rods south of Winchester center, 
which he occupied until 1776, when he sold to Martin North and returned 
to Torrington, where he spent his remaining life as a farmer and trader, 
occupying a high position as a magistrate and representative of the town. 
He was born in the ancient town of Farmington, August 14, 1751 ; mar- 
ried in Torrington, November 25, 1773, Lucy Loomis. He died Jan- 
uary 9, 1813. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elisha, b. July 19, 1775 ; d. in Tor., August 9, 1776. 
II. Okrkl, b. in Tor., Jan. 30, 1778; m. Russell C. Abernethy. 
III. Almira, b. " " 12, 17S0; d. April 20, 1780. 

Reuben Thrall, from Torrington, bought and occupied until his 
death, May 23, 1777, a farm immediately north of Roswell Coe's, in the 



102 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

southwest part of the town, afterward a part of the "Wade farm ; he died 
May 2<>, 1777, and his widow married William Barbour, September 26, 
1778; and about 1798, removed with him to Burke, Caledonia County, 
Vermont. 

CHILDREN OF REUBEN AND RUTH THRALL. 
I. Alexander, d. Oct. 27, 1786. 
II. Erastcs, b. Feb. 14, 1773. 

1773. 

The town records of 1778 show that the customary town officers were 
chosen, and a committee appointed to straighten the line between Winches- 
ter and Torrington ; a vote was passed to restrain swine from running at 
large, and another directing the Proprietor's committee to lay out the 
road from the Dugway, to Colebrook, already mentioned. 

The Society records show that the usual officers were chosen, including 
three choristers and two readers of the psalms. Ii was provided that the 
psalms should be read before singing for four months, and that thereafter 
they should be sung without reading. It was also voted to raise two 
pence on the pound of the rateable estate for the support of schools ; and 
the society was divided into three School Districts, which were to receive 
their rateable portions of the money raised ; but an adjourned meeting 
in January of the following year reconsidered all the votes concerning 
schools. 

The last vote of the year was, " that we desire Mr. Farrand and Mr. 
Newell and Marsh, shall come out and give their advise concerning some 
difficulty in this place." The difficulty referred to grew out of a disa- 
greement of the church and society, in respect to the privileges of half- 
way covenant members of the church. Prior to the ordination of Mr. 
Knapp, the church had voted, " That upon persons owning the covenant, 
they may have their children baptized, while they cannot see yr. way 
clear to come to y" Lord's table." 

About a month after Mr. Knapp's ordination (Dec. 1 6) a series of 
standing rules were adopted by the church ; — the seventh of which was, 
"that all persons who in other places have owned what is called the half- 
way covenant, in order to be admitted to special privileges in this church, 
shall renewedly and explicitly own y e Gospel Covenant." After the 
adoption of this rule, Joseph Hi skin and Jonathan Coe applied for admis- 
sion to membership on letters from Mr. Robert's church in Torrington. 
This application brought the disputed question to a practical issue. The 
church passed an explanatory vote " that the vote of the church which 
allowed baptism to y" children of persons owning the covenant, was in 
our view, and as we account, to be understood a whole covenant, without 
any clause left out;" and thereupon refused to receive the applicants. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 103 

Upon this state of the question, the counsel of Messrs. Farrand, 
Newell, and Marsh was asked by the concurrent vote of the church and 
society. The council met, on the 25th day of January, 1774, and came 
to a divided result. Messrs. Marsh and Newell were of opinion that the 
church rules above quoted were not consistent. They further say " that 
certain persons also applying to us, and complaining of injury done them 
by y e church in not accepting of y" letters of recommendation from y e 
Rev. Mr. Roberts, and claiming privileges by virtue of their recommend- 
ation. It is our opinion, y" letters ought to be read to this chh. and y e 
persons recommended be admitted to y e privileges of baptism for yr. 
children, agreeable to y e vote of sd. ch. before ordination of Mr Knapp." 

Mr. Farrand dissented from the opinion of his colleagues, for the fol- 
lowing reasons : 

"1. As the church declares they never meant to have any other but a 
gospel covenant, and 'twould be strange if a chh. of Jesus Christ, cove- 
nanting to w T alk together in his holy ordinances, should have only a po- 
litical covenant, or a mere legal covenant, which they must have, if not a 
gospel one, or no covenant at all. 

" 2d. The Chh. had a covenant written and assented to at their incor- 
poration by y e members of y" Chh., which they say they agreed that all 
future members should own ; and j" same covenant is what they now 
call a Gospel Covenant. 

" 3d. They say that they never meant to divide y e covenant hut only 
to indulge tender consciences 'til they could receive further light, wh. 
they are willing to do now; but y e judgment (of the majority) was that 
y e covenant must be divided, and this clause left out, that obliged them 
to walk in all y e ordinances of y e Lord, so that such may come into cov- 
enant, who will not promise to walk in all y e ordinances of y e Lord, but 
only such as they pick out and chuse. 

" 4th. The first vote says that all that have their children baptized shall 
own their covenant, wh. must mean either a Gospel covenant or y e cove- 
nant y* y e Chh. of Winchester had adopted ; but if their vote meant a 
Gospel covenant, they require no more of 'em now, but if they meant to 
distinguish y e covenant which y e Chh. had then, from a Gospel covenant, 
they require no more of them but to adopt the same covenant they then 
had, and are ready to indulge tender consciences ; whereupon I conclude 
they have not broken covenant, nor gone off from their first plan in their 
2d vote." 

This divided counsel, of course, satisfied neither party, and in no way 
tended to heal the dissention. At a subsequent meeting, May 3, the so- 
ciety voted 'Mo choose four men to treat with Mr. Knap concerning the 
difficulty among us, and to see if he will join with the society in chusing 
a mutual council." The church on May 9, unanimously voted " that it is 



104 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

our opinion that y e association to which we belong is y° proper board for 
us to be tried by, and by them we are ready to be tried at any suitable 
time." 

Whether the matter was carried before the Association (or Consocia- 
tion ?) does not appear, but it may be inferred that under some new ad- 
vice or counsel, a new gloss was added to the church covenant, at a meet- 
ing Dec. 14, by inserting the clause "only, in case you may labor under 
any scruples of conscience with respect to immediate attendance upon 
y e Lord's supper, you may be indulged in your absenting until you have 
had proper light for conviction " It was also voted "that we understand 
y c import of y e covenant entered into by this Chh. to be consistent with 
indulging persons that have any scruples of conscience about coming im- 
mediately to y e Lord's Supper, in absenting themselves from that ordi- 
nance until they have had sufficient light to convince them that it is their 
indispensable duty to attend upon it agreeable to the vote of y' Chh. re- 
lating to persons owning yr. covenant being allowed to have y e children 
baptized, tho. they cannot see their way clear to come to y e Lord's table." 
It was also voted "that persons bringing letters from other churches, 
previous to their being admitted into this Chh. shall explicitly renew y° 
covenant with us." 

This controversy in our infant church might well remain in the obscur- 
ity of our imperfect and scattered records, and consigned to oblivion, 
were it not for the results of good and evil that flowed from it in all the 
subsequent history of the parish and town. Good men became dis- 
affected towards the standing order, and arrayed themselves in hostility 
to the pastor, who set his face determinedly against the compromise of 
principle involved in a half-way consecration to the Lord, and may have 
displayed more of arbitrary zeal than of wise consideration in his efforts 
to annul the unholy compact. 

Luther Lee,* or some other early apostle of Methodism, came into this 
region about that period ; and the new evangel was welcomed by the op- 
ponents of the standing order. A number of the patriarchs of this town 
received it gladly, and left it as a legacy to their children. A church 
was organized at "Noppit" in Torrington, near the border of this town, 
where the opponents of Mr. Knapp found refuge. Another was organ- 
ized at an early day in Winsted, which has grown into a large and influ- 
ential body. The asperities of early years have died away. Sectarian- 
ism has yielded to Christian love, and the members of the two commun- 
ions differ little but in name from each other. Their combined influence 
in advancing and extending the cause of religion is far greater than 
could be effected by one united body. 

* The compiler lias recently learned that the two eariiest Methodist ministers 
preaching in the town were named Covill and Stoneman. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 105 

1773. 
The new comers of the year 1773, were Abram Andrews and his 
sons, Theophilus, Abram, Jr., Daniel and Eli, John Austin, Rev. Joshua 
Knapp, Hawkins Woodruff, Reuben Miner, and Gideon Wilcoxson. 

Capt. Abram Andrews, Senior, from Danbury, bought a farm of 
eighty acres, lying north of the old Everitt house, in the Danbury Quarter, 
now in part belonging to Mr. Tibball's farm, a part of which he occupied 
until his death. Out of his eighty-acre lot he successively apportioned as 
advancements to his four sons, ten acres each, and to two of his daughters 
five acres each, in parallel strips running north and south through the 
farm, and eventually sold out the remainder in driblets, and died landless 
October 29, 1805, aged 84. Over his grave in the Danbury Quarter is a 
marble slab " erected by his daughter Laurana." He was born about 1721, 
at Grassy Plain, in Danbury, son of Robert and Anna (Olmsted) An- 
drews, grandson of Abraham and Sarah (Porter) Andrews, and great- 
grandson of John and Mary Andrews, who were among the first settlers 
of Farmington. He married Sarah Taylor, of Bethel ; from whence she 
brought a letter of dismission to the church in W., November , 1774. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Theophilus, 2 hi. October 4, 1764, Phebe Benedict. 
II. Abkam, 2 m. April 24, 1773, Sarah Young. 

III. Ensign Daniel,'- b. 1749, m. Surah Hall; she d. October 3d, 1822. 

IV. Eli, 2 m. August 29, 1787, Ruth Rockwell. 
V. Chloe, 2 m. May 22, 1768, Noah Benedict. 

VI. Laukana, 2 m. September, 18U4, Israel White, of Sharon. 

Theophilus Andrews, son of the foregoing, is described by a cotem- 
porary as " a Yankee, dyed in the wool ; by profession a tinker, he trav- 
ersed the northern {tart of the county, with his kit of tools in a pair of 
leather saddle-bags swung over his shoulders, mending brass kettles and 
molding pewter spoons and buttons." He continued his peregrinations as 
late as 1810, and afterwards went to live with a son in central New York. 
None of his descendants remain in the town. He married October 4th, 
1764, Phebe Benedict. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Eliakim, b. April 17, 1765. 
II. James, b. January 17, 1767. 

III. Theophilus, b March 18, 1768; d. March 19, 1768. 

IV. Naomi, b. April 30, 1769. 

V. Phebe, b. February 20, 1772; d. May 29, 1775. 

VI. Betsey, b. April 28,. 1774. 

VII. Phebe, b May 9, 1776; d. February 14, 1777 

VIII. Lucr, b January 1, 1778. 

IX. Roswell, b. October 8, 1779. 

14 



106 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

Abram Andrews, Jr , is described by the same cotemporary as "a 
Yankee diverse fi om < Theof.,' but of equal doodle. Both were wise-acres, 
but neither of them added more than a cubit to his ten acre patrimony." 
He removed to central New York after 1805. He married April 24, 
1773, Sarah Young. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Levi, b. January 21, 1777. 

II. Abraham, b. August 15, 1779. 

III. Sarah, b. April 4, 1782. 

IV. John Sprague, b. May 22, 1784. 

V. Chioe, b. January 10, 1788. 

VI. Sylvester, b. November 26, 1795. 

Ensign Daniel Andrews, third son of Abram, Senior, "was a man 
of sense, energy, industry and uprightness." He built, and occupied until 
his death, July 20th, 1828, aged 79, the lean-to house a little east of the 
Danbury school house, now owned by Lyman H. Gilbert. He married 
April 2d, 1771, Sarah Hall; she died October 3d, 1822, aged 69. 

children. 

I. Rhoda, b. June 24, 1771 ; m. Levi Grant, of Norfolk. 
II. Daniel, b. October 25, 1772. 

III. Anna, b. April 3, 1774. 

IV. Hdldah, b. October 14, 1775. 
V. Sarah, b. February 16, 1777. 

VI. Ezra, b. September 13, 1 778 ; had wife, Paulina. Children : Paulina Louisa, 
b. June 22, 1804 ; Huldah Emeline, b. May 17, 1806 ; and Jerusha 
Fidelia, b. October 15, 1807. 

Eli Andrews, fourth son of Abram, Senior, lived on a part of his 
father's original farm until his removal to central New York, after 1801. 
He married August 29, 1787, Ruth Rockwell. 



CHILDREN. 



I. Joel, b. December 29, 1787. 
II. Clara, b. June 4, 1789. 

III. Abigail, b. March 27, 1792. 

IV. Polly, b. August 15, 1793. 



Daniel Andrews, son of Ensign Daniel, married Sarah Piatt ; she 
died December 16, 1848, aged 72 ; he died October 4, 1854, aged 82. 

children. 

I. Platt, b. March 6, 1799 ; m. March 6, 1828, Nancy Gilbert ; she d. June 

25, 1850; he m. (2d) the widow of Ira Hull. He d. June 
16, 1860, s. p. 
II. Amos, b. July 15, 1801 ; d. September 20, 1845. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 107 

III. Augustus, b. January 23, 1806 ; d. August 2, 1853, at Council Bluff, Iowa. 

IV. Maria, b. November 15, 1808; m. Willard Hart. 
V. Hiram, b. May 12, 1813. 

VI. Lbwis, b. December 10, 1814 ; m. October 5, 1840, Caroline P. Culver. 

VII. Huldah, b. September 1, 1817; m. Milo M. Wadsworth. 

VIII. Harriet, b. November 4, 1819; m. (1st) Albert Jaqua; (2d) Correl, 

Manchester. 

John Austin bought this year of David Austin, thirty-five acres of 
land within the present village of Winsted, and sold the same to John 
Walter in 1779, and is described in the deeds as of Winchester. Whence 
he came and where he went is not ascertained. 

Rev. Joshua Knapp, from Danbury, the recently ordained Pastor, 
purchased and lived on a lot next South of the homestead of Eliphaz 
Alvord, Esq., at the north-west corner made by the parting of the east and 
west road to Winchester Centre, from the north and south Dug-way road. 
His dwelling-house was demolished early in this century. 

CHILDREN OF THE REV. JOSHUA AND MRS. MARY KNAPP. 

I. Mart, b. December 8, 1772. 

II. Abigail Bract, b. August 16, 1774. 

III. Elizabeth, b. October 11, 1776; d. June 29, 1777. 

IV. Joshua, b. July 2, 1778. 

V. Elizabeth, b. January 28, 1781. 

VI. Caleb Bdshnell, b. June 16, 1783. 
VII. Martha, b. October 21, 1785. 

VIII. Florilla, b. May 12, 1787 ; d. June 1, 1787. 

IX. Florilla, b. July 23, 1788. 

Hawkins Woodruff bought, and lived a few years on the farm now 
owned by Frederick Murray, on the old road from Winsted to Winchester 
Centre. He sold out to Samuel Clark in 1777. Whence he came and 
where he went is not ascertained. He married June 4, 1773, Lois Hills. 

CHILD. 
Clara, b. March 24, 1774. 

Reuben Miner came from New London, was a blacksmith by trade, 
and first built a house and shop near the original meeting house, from 
whence he removed in 1775 to the centre of the township, and built and 
occupied until his death the old hou-e now owned and occupied by Joel 
G. Griswold, on the old road from Winsted to Winchester. He was a 
man of earnest piety and zeal and an estimable citizen. He married Mrs. 
Sanderforth.* He died February 15, 1826, aged 85, leaving no record of 

* The marriage of this worthy couple was said to be of the Enoch Arden order- 
They were both residents of New London. Mrs. Sanderforth's first husband was a 
sea captain, who was shipwrecked on a distant voyage, and not being heard from for 



108 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

his family. He had two daughters, Esther and Lucy. Lucy lived and 
died single. Esther married David Strong. 

Jonathan Sweet is described on the land records of this year as of 
Winchester, and subsequently as of Goshen, and then again as of Win- 
chester. He first owned the B. B. Rockwell farm, between the two ponds, 
and afterwards a tract of land on Blue street, adjoining Goshen line. He 
may have temporarily resided on both places. He sold out his land in 
1781, and probably then left the town. He married August 29, 1773, 
Esther Lewis. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sarah, b. May 16, 1774. 

II. Lorrain, b. February 16, 1776; d. March 24, 1778. 

III. Jonathan Lewis, b. June 26, 1778. 

IV. Lucy, b. June 30, 1780. 

Gideon Wilcoxson, from Stratford, owned and is supposed to have 
lived on land lying north and northeast of the Little Pond, probably the 
Daniel Beckley place. He served in the Revolutionary War, and died, 
while a prisoner, in the Sugar House in New York. His estate was 
administered in the Simsbury Probate Court, and distribution made to 
his brothers Elisha, David, and John, and his sisters Elizabeth Lake, 
Ruth Hubbell, Martha Beach, Huldah Coe, and Abia McCune. 

1774. 

We find the following votes of 1774, which reflect no credit on the 
infant town : — 

" It was put to vote whether Lent Mott should be an inhabitant of this 
town, and it was voted in the negative." 

" It was put to vote whether Widow Sarah Preston should be an 
inhabitant of this town, and it was voted in the negative." 

" It was put to vote whether Benjamin Preston should be an inhabitant 
of this town, and it was voted in the negative." 

When it is considered that each of these parties was a pioneer settler, 
that the first was one of the original members of the Church, still in good 

several years, was believed to be lost. Mrs. Sanderforth, after some years of supposed 
widowhood, married Mr. Minor; and soon afterwards, Capt. Sanderforth reappeared 
and claimed his wife. The two husbands finally agreed that the wife should decide to 
which of them she would adhere ; and that she and her selected husband should move 
out of New London county. She adhered to Mr. Minor, and they forthwith moved 
to Winchester. Their marriage was in some way legalized, and their lives were ex- 
emplary, affectionate, and pious. She was a refined woman, and highly esteemed. 
Some of her Sanderforth children followed her to this town, one of whom, a daughter, 
married William, son of John Miner. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 109 

standing, and that the other two were admitted to membership in 1775, 
it is hard to assign any other cause than poverty for these disfranchising 
votes. 

The new comers of this year were Ozias Brownson and his sons, Ozias, 
Junior, Levi (second), Salmon, Asahel, Abijah P., and Isaac ; Joseph 
Frisbee, Phineas Griswold, Ambrose Palmer, Joel Roberts, Peter 
Corbin, and his sons, Peter, Junior, and Daniel ; John Videto and his 
son, John, Junior ; Stephen Wade and his son, Amasa ; Ichabod Loomis, 
William Castel, Benjamin Preston, and Gideon Smith. 

Col. Ozias Brownson lived on the farm now owned by Reuben 
Chase, about a mile and a half southerly from the center. He was a 
blacksmith and farmer, and is described by a cotemporary as a " professor 
of religion, somewhat fierce and overbearing, industrious and thrifty, 
abounding in horses. He had children, one daughter and six sons. 
These sons were of gigantic strength, and the Colonel worked the five 
oldest to a great profit." He served as a Lieutenant and Captain of 
Militia in several tours of duty during the Revolution. He died March 
12, 1810, aged 68. His wife, Abigail (Peck), died August 21, 1831, 
aged 78. His youngest son, Isaac, Esq., was born in Winchester, 
January 22, 1776. 

Ozias Brownson, Junior, built the house at Winchester Center now 
owned by Rev. Frederick Marsh, in which he lived until 1802, when he 
sold out to Rev. Archibald Bassett, and soon after removed to Amsterdam, 
N. Y. He married, January 12. 1792, a daughter (Grace) of Daniel 
Coe Hudson of Torrington * and called his eldest son George Washington 
Jefferson, a name which somewhat dumb-founded Parson Robbins at the 

* The compiler heard Mr. B. relate an incident of his marriage, illustrating the 
customs of that day. On the morning after the wedding he started from Torringford 
to Winchester in a sleigh, with his hride and a two gallon bottle of rum, and on his 
way home found the road fenced up in three successive places, with gatherings of 
neighbors at each fence, prepared to salute his wife, or bottle, before allowing him a 
passage homeward. 

* * * * Another Winchester man, about this time married a wife in North 
Goshen, and was rather select in his invitations to the wedding. The roystcring boys 
of Goshen Center were " left out in the cold." The marriage ceremony having been 
performed, and the "cushion dance" or some other kissing game commenced, a gang 
of the uninvited " he ones," who had secreted themselves around the open outside 
door, suddenly sprung upon the bride as she was passing, and rushed her into their 
sleigh. The horses were put to their full speed, the bride was taken to a tavern in the 
south part of Norfolk, and treated to flip, music, and dancing until the early hours of 
the morning, before the frantic husband could rescue her. He resorted to law instead 
of pistols for redress, but settled the suit before trial, so that it was never ascertained 
what a Litchfield county jury would award in dollars and cents for " stealing a bride." 



110 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

baptism. " He could build a house, a cart, or a plough, or any other 
article of wood and iron. He worked all day at the anvil, or on his 
land, and journeyed two-thirds of the nights. At length he pulled up 
stakes and moved to the German Flats to grow hemp." 

Levi Brownson, second son of Ozias, Senior (known as Levi 
Bronson, second), owned, and occupied until his death, an extensive 
farm near the southeast corner of Norfolk* living in the red house near 
the Norfolk line. He was a hard-working, wealthy farmer. He married, 
October 25, 1792, Mary Benedict, daughter of Benjamin Benedict, Sen. 
She died March 9, 1824, aged 51. He married (second), November 14, 
1824, Widow Clarissa L. (Higley) Morgan, who died September 14, 
1827, aged 50. He died October 16, 1846, aged 81. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Uriel B. b. May 6, 1796 ; m. May 13, 1823, Clarissa Lawrence. 

II. Alma, b. July 4, 1798; ra. March 14, 1825, Russell Cowciry. 

III. Huldah, b. June 4, 18C0 ; m. May 2, 1826, Chester Humphrey. 

IV. Salima, b. March 31, 1802 ; m. — Stevens of Coventry, N. Y. 

V. Mary, b. April 8, 1804; m. October 20, 1827, Seth Benedict of 

Coventry, N. Y. 

VI. Levi, b. February 4, 1806 ; m. May 2, 1826, Susan Morgan. 
VII. Lyman, b. December 23, 1808; m. May 3, 1836, Jerusha Wright. 

VIII. Lucy, b. August 29, 1811 ; m. April 11, 1833, David R. Barnes. 

IX. Frederick, b. July 2, 1815. 

X. Asahel Hervey, b. June 16, 1817. 

Salmon Brownson, third son of Colonel Ozias, lived and died on the 
farm now or lately owned by his son, Luther Bronson. " He was in- 
dustrious, frugal, honest, moral and steadfast. His religion was some- 
thing more than profession." He married, November 3, 1800, Mercy 
Wheadon. He died February 18, 1832, aged 64. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Galpin Peck, b. May 13, 1802 ; bad wife, Freelove L., and a daughter, 

Lucretia Wheadon, b. June 22, 1830. 

II. Salome Wheadon, b. Jan. 17, 1804. 

III. Pamelia R., b. Feb. 28, 1807; d. unmarried, 1871. 

IV. Charity, b. Oct. 28, 1809; m. March 6, 1827, Samuel C. Ford, 

Waterbury. 
V. Clarina, b. April 19, 1812 ; m. September 9, 1833, Chas. Bently, 

N. Stonington. 

VI. Electa, b. Jan. 28, 1816' 

VII. Luther, b. Feb. 6, 1821. 

Asahel Brownson, fourth son of Colonel Ozias, lived and died in the 
house on Blue Street, lately occupied by Archibald Dayton, now de- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. HI 

ceased, who married his widow. He was a retiring, laborious and suc- 
cessful farmer. He married, July 26, 1824, Lophelia Richardson, and 
died childless, October 13, of the same year, aged 54. 

Abijah Peck Brownson, fifth son of Colonel Ozias, lived on Brooks 
Street, north of Nelson T. Loomis, until his removal to Vernon, New 
York, about 1800. "He was the Anak of the family: — a man of 
pleasant temperament, and brim-full of courage and fortitude." Many a 
strong wild colt did he shoe ; many a wild steer did he yoke, — and many 
a time did he bind his neighbor, John Lucas, a respectable man, but strong 
and occasionally crazy. Soon after his marriage (November 16, 1797, to 
Mary, daughter of Hewitt Hills), he removed to Oneida County, New 
York, where, at middle age, he died, less successful than his brothers in the 
acquisition of property. 

Isaac Bronson,* youngest son of Colonel Ozias, and the only one born 
in the town, built and resided until his death, in the house at the center now 
owned by his son, Theron. He was the largest land owner in the town. 
He was also a trader for many years, and a large dealer in dairy pro- 
ducts from his own farms and purchased from others. He was a prom- 
inent and influential man in the town, — a Justice of the Peace, and 
three times a Representative to the General Assembly. Having di- 
vided up his large estate among his children, he died January 13, 1849, 
aged 74. He married, September 18, 1800, Eliza, daughter of Hewitt 
Hills. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Birdsey, b. June 16, 1801 ; m. Nov. 7, 1826, Elizabeth Garret Beebe, 
daughter of Hon. James Bcebe. He owned and occupied the house at 
the corner of the Norfolk road and Waterbury turnpike, until his re- 
moval to New London, where both he and his wife died not far from 
1840. Children: 

1. William B., b. May 10, 1829; m. Sept. 23, 1858, Katie McAlpine. 

2. Ellen Elizabeth, b. May 16, 1833; m. Jan. 29, 1855, Dr. L. P. 
Woods. She m. (2d), March 7, 1867, Oscar F. Potter, of Des- 
moines, Iowa. 

II. Eliza, b. Dec. 19, 1802; m. Jan. 14, 1834, Calvary Wetmore. 

III. Newbury, b. April 13, 1804. 

IV. Emeline, b. Feb. 19, 1806; d. July 27, 1806. 

V. Orpha, b. June 30, 1807; m. June 10, 1851, Jas. Reynolds, Esq., of 

Orange, Ct. 
VI. Theron, b. March 20, 1809; m. — Maria Munsill. 
VII. Louisa, b. Nov. 28, 1810. 



* The " w " was retained in the name of the Winchester Brownsons, until after 
1810 ; by some of them, as appears by their recorded deeds, as late as 1825. 



112 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

VIII. Delia, b. Dec. 25, 1812; d. Dec. 26, 1816. 

IX. Edwin, b. Feb. 2, 1815; d. Jan. 8, 1817. 

X. Abigail, b. Dec. 13, 1817. 

XI. Isaac A., b. June 16, 1820; m. Nov. 4, 1845, Susan R. Nash. 

Lois, daughter of Colonel Ozias Brownson, married, December, 9, 1779, 
Seth Wetmore, and in advanced life, Major Behoni Bronson. 

The family of Bronson, once the most numerous, with one exception, 
in the town, has but few representatives remaining. But two of the 
third generation (Theron and Isaac A.) bearing the name are now resi- 
dents. 

Ensign Joseph Frisbie, from Torriugton, first lived on Lot 6, in 
the southwest corner of the town, and afterwards, in 1782, removed to a 
lot opposite the original meeting house, with a saw-mill thereon, probably 
erected by him. He removed to Vernon, New York, about 1800. He 
married, October 7, 17G7, Sarah Kelsey ; she died May 25, 1783, and he 
married (2d), February 21, 1785, Diantha, daughter of Adam Mott. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Elijah, b. July 12, 1768; m. Jan. 10, 1792, Lodemia, daughter of 

Adam Mott; she d. March 27, 1801.— Child, Marcus, b. May 7, 1792. 
He went to Vernon, N. Y., about 1801. 
II. Eli, b. June 8, 1772. 

III. Parda, b. May 19, 1775. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

IV. Joseph, b. Feb 4, 1786. 

V. Sally, b. March 22, 1789. 

Elijah Frisbie, son of Joseph, in 1791, owned the Silas Hoskin 
place in Winsted, which he sold to Benjamin Whiting in 1793, and after- 
ward owned and occupied the Samuel A. McAlpin place, about a mile 
south of Winchester center, until his removal to Vernon, New York, 
about 1800. 

Phineas Griswold, from Wethersfield, lived, until 1784, near Tor- 
rington line, on the old South Country Road, — when he bought and oc- 
cupied until his death (March 11, 1815, aged 74), the Newman B. Gil- 
bert farm, in the Danbury quarter. His wife, Lois, was sister of the 
oldest Samuel Hurlbut. She died December 5, 1 808, aged 64. 

CHILDREN. 

Phineas, Matthew, Benjamin, and Amos, born in Wethersfield. 
Patty, b. in Winchester, Feb. 1, 1778. 
Bena, b. " " Dec. 26, 1779. 

Sabra, b. " " Aug. 26, 1781. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 113 

Ambrose Palmer, son of Job, of Litchfield, lived on a part of the 
John J. Fanning farm, in the Danbury quarter, until 1791, when he re- 
turned to Litchfield. Had wife, Susanna. 

CHILDREN. 

I.Minerva, b. July 24, 1778. 

II. Susanna, b. Oct. 24, 1781. 

III. Ambrose, b. Sept. 15, 1784. 

IV. Calvin, b. March 30, 1786. 

Benjamin Preston, from Goshen, lived near the Widow Everitt 
place on Brooks Street, in Danbury quarter. He was a cripple from his 
birth, and lived by making baskets, birch brooms, and splint chair bottoms. 
He married, May 3, 1775, Sarah Videto. She died October 23, 1780, 
and he married (2d), August 20, 1782, Mary Curtis. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Thankful, b. Dec. 31, 1775. 

II. "Lysdf" [Eliasaph], b. Aug. 17, 1777; d. Aug. 17, 1777. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

III. Patience, b. March 16, 1779; d. March 16, 1779. 

IV. Benjamin, b. Dec. 29, 1783. 

V. Ephraim, b. Feb. 22, 1787; d. March 12, 1794. 

VI. Seth, b. April 25, 1789. 



Joel Roberts owned and lived on a farm now absorbed in the B. B. 
Rockwell, J. G. Griswold, and Emory Coe farms, until his death in 1780. 
The probate records of Norfolk District show that he had sons, Judah, 
(baptized in Torrington, September 28. 1 783), Joel and Loomis, and daugh- 
ters, Mary, Naomi (she died unmarried October 1, 1 782), Chloe and Esther ; 
and left Esther, his widow. His son, Judah, lived on the Kelsey farm, 
near the small pond in the northeast part of the town, from 1802 to 1810, 
and died in Ilitchcocksville at an advanced age. 

His grand-son, Judah, son of the above, owned and occupied the B. 
B. Rockwell farm, from 1848 to 1857, and thence migrated to Kanke- 
kee, Illinois, where he died about 1861. 

Capt. Peter Corbin, with his sons, Daniel and Peter, Jr., came 
from Danbury and lived on the Asaph Brooks farm in the Danbury 
quarter. His house stood on the east side of the way, opposite Mr. 
Brooks. He removed to Colebrook in 1805, and spent his remaining 
life with his son Peter, Jr. He was captain of the first company of the 
15 



114 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Alarm Regimrnt of Conn., in 1780. He was b. in 1733, and m. Nov. 
18, 1756, Abigail Benedict, at Danbury. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Daniel, b. in Banbury, Oct.. 1, 1757 ; m. May 30, 1776, Mabel Everitt; 

he die.l in Colebrook, 1809. 
IT. Peter, 'Jr , b. in Danbury, Aug. 6, 1762. 

III. Abigail, b. " Feb. 26, 1766 ; m. in 17S8, Abijab Benedict. 

IV. Lcct, b. " Jan. 20, 1770; m. in 1806, Jennings, of 

Coventry, N. Y. 
V. Anna, b. " Feb. 6, 1772; m. 1795, Ashbel Humphrey, of 

Goshen. 
VI. Esther, b. in "Winchester, Jan. 3, 1776 ; m. 1797, Zeri Hoyt. 

Peter Corbin, Jr., lived in the old part of the house of Asaph 
Brooks, above mentioned, until his removal to Colebrook, about 1805. 
He m. in 1790, Villette bearing, of Simsbury, N. J. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Joseph, b. March 31, 1791 ; m. in 1815, Lois Cady. 

II. Uriel, b. " 1793; died in Colebrook, 1842. 

III. John S., b. Feb. 25, 1797; m. Maria, dau. of Asa Nearing of B'oomfield 

IV. Amos, b. Dec. 25, 1800; m. Jan. 1822, Louisa, dau. of Samuel Cowles, 

of Colebrook. 
V. Peter, b. Jan. 27, 1808; m. May 11, 1835, Caroline, dau. of Seth Whit- 
ing, of Colebrook. 

Daniel Corbin lived on a hill, west of Asaph Brooks, about half 
way to the house of Lloyd Humphrey, in Norfulk. He died in Cole- 
brook in 18U9, aged 52. 

John Videto, a foreigner, came from Danbury, and lived on the old 
South Country Road, next south of the Widow Everitt farm, until his 
death Nov. 29, 1799, at the age of 85 years, 18 days. 

John Videto, Jr. came with, and lived in the same house with his 
father, until his removal to Austinburg, O., in 1807, with his son Jasper. 
He m. Aug. 13, 177H, Mary Grover. She d. Sept. 8, 1779 ; and he m. 
(2d) Dec. 12, 1780, Achsah North. 

CHILDREN by first wife. 

I. Hannah, b. May 26, 1777; m. Cowles, of Austinburg, O. 

H. Mary, b. July 2, 1779; d. Nov. 21, 1779. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. H5 



CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

III. Jasper, b. Sept. 12, 1783; m. Jan. 1, 1806, Rebecca Williams, dau. of Obed 

W., of Colebrook. Child, Sally, b. Nov. 7, 1806. 

IV. Loka, b. June 13, 1785. 

Jacob "Wade, 1 came from England to Lyme, Conn., where he died 
aged 99 years. His children were : 

I. Jacob. 2 
II. Lucy. a 

III. Stephen, 2 moved to Branford, where he m. Maria Abigail Hoadley. He 
came with his son Amasa, 3 to Winchester, in 1774, where they settled on 
the farm recently occupied by Isaac Wade, 4 in the southeast part of the 
town. He d. Feb. 8, 1817, aged 93. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Solomon, 3 b. Nov. 23,1748; d in Rupert, Vt., aged 92 yrs. 5 mos. 3 d. He 

had children, Abigail, Matilda, Amasa, Stephen, and Lucy. 
II Amasa, 3 b. March 16, 1751. 

III. Edward 3 , b. May 25, 1754. 

IV. Abigail, 3 b. Aug. 18, 1759; m. Nov. 22, 1780, Benj. Baker, of Litchfield, 

and had children : Edward, John, Stephen, David, Lucy, 
Sally, and Anna. . 

Amasa Wade, 3 resided on the same farm until his death, Aug 30, 
1838, aged 87 yrs. 5 mos. 3d. He was, by trade, a Tanner and Shoe- 
maker; and by frugal industry acquired a large estate. He is described 
by Rev. Mr. Marsh as a u eful and worthy ci i/.en, re>pec:ed and hon- 
ored for his love of order, his puritanic habits, his steady attention to 
busine-s, and hVm regard to the interests of religion and the welfare of 
the church and society. He m. Jan. 22, 1777, Anna Hale ; she d. Ap. 
27, 1837, aged 85 years. 

children. 

I. Isaac, 4 b. Dec. 9, 1777. 

II. Stephen, 4 b. May 9, 1779. 

III. Anna, 4 b. Oct. 2, 1781 ; m. Allen Burr; 2d, Lyman Barber. 

IV. Amasa, 4 b. Dec. 5, 1785. 

V. Wealthy, 4 b. Oct. 30, 1788; m. Stephen Baker, son of Benjamin, and had 
chihlren :— 1, Amasa Hale, b. May 16, 1815 ; 2, Clarissa, 
b. Jan. 20, 1818 ; 3, David G., b. Jan. 11, 1824, d. Jan. 
14, 1843. 

Edward Wade, 3 third son of Stephen, 2 lived in Vermont, and died 
at the age of 96 yrs. 5 mos. His children were Edward, 4 Hannah, 4 Abi- 
gail,* Alenam, 4 (?) Isaac,* Phebe, 4 Anna, 4 Jacob, 4 and Stephen. 4 



116 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Isaac Wade, 4 in his earlier years, lived in the house late owned by 
Sage W. Grant, half a mile west of the centre, next near the Elmore 
Tannery, arid after the death of his father, in the paternal homestead. 
He died Aug. 28, 1862, aged 85. He m. Sally Anderson. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lucia, 5 b. May — , 1809; in. Dec. 25, 1839, James L. Williams, of 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 
II. Sidney, 5 b. Nov. 6, 1810; m. June 15, 1840, Louisa Bronson. He m. 

(2d) July 1, 1857, Mary E. Huntting. 

III. Harriett, 5 b. Ap. — , 1814; m. William Sanford. 

IV. Anderson, 5 b. Nov. 19, 1816; m. Dec. — , 1847, Clara G. Bartlett. 
V. Sarah Ann, 5 b. Ap. — , 1819; m. June 19, 1845, Ruel 0. White. 

Stephen Wade 4 lived on Brooks Street, Danbury Quarter, until his 
removal to Vernon, N. Y., about 1825. He m. March 25, 1802, Lovisa, 
dau. of Hewitt Hills. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Tracy, 5 b. July 7, 1802 ; d. Jan. 14, 1811. 

II. Eliza, 5 b. Aug 14, 1«03. 

III. Schdyler, 5 b. June 9, 1806. 

IV. Amasa Hale, 5 b. June 8, 1808; d. Jan. 21, 1809. 
V. Abernethy, 5 b. Jan. 9, 1810. 

VI. Tracy Hale, 5 b. Ap. 12, 1814. 

VII. Stephen Franklin, b. Oct 28, 1818. 

VIII. Virgil Booth, b. March 15, 1823. 



Amasa Wade 4 lived on a farm adjoining his father's, and, in partner- 
ship with Ins brother Isaac, owned and carried on the tannery afterwards 
owned by the Elmores. He removed, about 1 855. to Harmony, Chau- 
tauqua County, N. Y., and afterwards to Union Mills, Erie Co., Penn. 
He m. July 15, 1811, Abigail, dau. of Abner Coe. 

children. 

I. Homer Hale, 5 b. July 15, 1811. 

II. Harmon Coe, 5 b. Feb. 19, 1813. 

III. Hiram Whiie, 5 b. Aug. 12, 1815. 

IV. Mary Ledyard, 5 b. July 18, 1817. 
V. Hiel Dyvight, 5 b. Sept. 18, 1820. 

VI. Harris Eaton. 5 



Edward Wade, 4 son of Edward, 3 b. Nov. 7, 1778, lives in State of 
New York, has 17 children, as follows, all by one wife. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 117 

I. Sally, b. Ap. 21, 1804. X.Melissa, b. Feb. 28, 1820. 

II. Loring, b. Feb, 21, 1806. XI. Samantha, b. Dec. 4, 1821. 

III. Temperance, b. June 4, 1807. XII. Alex'nd. McD., b. Ap. 5, 1823. 

IV. Florain, b. Ap. 8, 1*09. XIII. Hannah V., b. Jan. 10, 1825. 
V. Peter S., b. Nov. 5, 1810. XIV. Lewis S., b. Sept. 6, 1826. 

VI. Grant E., b. Mch. 26, 1812. XV. Harrison, b. Oct. 10, 1829. 

VII. Marcia G., b. Jan. 17, 1814. XVI. Eleanor, b. July 4, 1831. 

VIII. Patty M., b. March 2, 1816. XVII. Helen M., b. Mch. 22, 1833. 

IX. Loly Jennett, b. Dec. 14, 1817. 



Joseph Loomis, 1 Senior, came from Bristol, England, to Windsor, 
about 1639. 

Deacon John Loomis, 2 son of Joseph, Senior, married Elizabeth, 
daughter of Thomas Scott, of Hartford, February 6, 1G48. 

Timothy Loomis, 3 son of Deacon John, born at Windsor, July 27, 
1661, married Rebecca Porter, March 20, 1689. 

Ichabod Loomis, 4 son of Timothy, born at Windsor, July 25, 1692, 
married Dorothy Loomis, January 25, 1738, and died February 25, 
1796, aged 84. 

Ichabod Loomis, 6 son of Ichabod, 4 born ; married January 

29 1766, Mindwell Lewis. He migrated to this town from Torrington, 
in 1774, and died July 31, 1785. She died August 6, 1807, in her 66th 
year. He lived on a farm in the Danbury Quarter, lying on a road 
parting northeasterly from the South Country Road, a little south of the 
Widow Everitt house. 

children. 

I. Thaddeus, 6 b. November 27, 1766. 

II. Sibyl, 6 b. June 25, 1770 ; m Dea. Benjamin Benedict. 

III. Ariel, 6 b. August 8, 1773. 

IV. Ichabod, 6 b. June 14, 1775. 

V. Minie, 6 b. February 15, 1779; m. Asahcl Wells. 

Thaddeus Loomis, 6 lived near Goshen line, north of the Norfolk 
road, on land that was afterward a part of the farm of Levi Bronson, 
second. He removed in 1802 to Salisbury, Herkimer Co., N. Y., where 
he was for many years a Justice of the Peace, and for four years an 
Assistant-Justice of the County Court. He married May 26, 1789, 
Lois Griswold, daughter of Phineas. She died in 1827; he died in 
Holley, N. Y., June 14, 1832. 



118 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 

I. Huldah, 7 b. September 12, 1789. 

II. Lucy, 7 b. November 2, 1790. 

III. Matilda, 7 b. October 20, 1793 ; m. Loring S. Williams. 

IV. Aesenoe, 7 b. June 28, 1796. 
V. Arphaxad, 7 b. April 9, 1798. 

VI. Horace, 7 b. March 4, 1800. 

VII. Lewis, 7 b. Salisbury, N. Y. 

VIII. Malina, 7 b. S. ; m. Alden S. Gage. 

IX. Algernon, 7 b. Salisbury, N. Y. 

Hon. Arphaxad Loomis, 7 son of Thaddeus, settled in Little Falls, 
N. Y., in the praclice of law in 1825, and continued to reside there 
during his life. He held the office of county surrogate eight years, was 
first Judge of the County Court five years, member of Congress two years, 
member of the State Legislature three years, and member of the Consti- 
tutional Convention in 1846. His defective hearing prevented his 
appointment to high judicial stations for which his integrity of character 
and legal acquirements eminently fitted him. He married in 1832, Ann, 
daughter of Doctor Stephen Todd of Salisbury, N. Y., and has had 
eight children, five of whom were living in 1857. (See Kilbourne's 
" Biographical History of Litchlield Co.," p. 315.) 

Captain Abiel Loomis lived in Winded, on Spencer Street, in a 
house that stood on the site of Widow Lucy Coe's residence, untd about 
1809, when he removed to the firm now owned by William Johnson, on 
the dugway road in Old Winchester. About 1815, he purchased the 
Dudley Tannery in Winsted, and removed to the house on Main Street 
next west of the Tannery, where he died October 16, 1818, aged 45. 
He was a man of ardent temperament, highly respected and influential. 
He married June 20, 1793, Eunice Coe, daughter of Ens. Jonathan. 
She died May 15, 1841. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Alvah, 7 b. October 25, 1793 ; d. September 4, 1794. 

II. Almiua, 7 b. April 19, 1795; m. November 17, 1844, Thomas Williams 

of Winsted ; he died May H>, 1870, aged 63, s. p. 

III. Eunice, 7 b. February 16, 1797; died March 3, 1797. 

IV. Cai.ista, 7 b. July 16, 1798; d. October 13, 1818. 

V. Abiel, 7 b. August 19, 1800; was prepared to enter College, when the 

death of his father, in 1818, threw on him the care of the family. He 
manifested great energy and skill in extricating the embarrassed affairs 
of his father's estate, and subsequently in his own business transactions. 
After carrying on the tannery business and a country store for several 
years, he removed to New York in 1826, where he died November 25 



AND FAMILY RECOKDS. 119 

1830, leaving a widow and son. He was a model son and brother, 
generous and noble in bis nature. 

VI. Norman, 7 b. November 27, 1802 ; d. January 14, 1819. 

VII. Alanson, 7 b. January 21, 1806 ; m. Sarah Richards. lie succeeded his 

older brother in the tannery business in Winsted, where he resided, with 
the exception of three years, until 1848, when he removed to Fulton, 
N. Y., where he now lives, and has a family of children. His wife died 
in 1863. 
VIII. Elihu Lewis, 7 b. March 19, 1808, known as Lewis E. ; lived in New York 
from 1826 to 184<>, and in Winsted from 1840 to 1845, when he removed 
to Fulion, N. Y., where he now resides. He m. Camp, 

daughter of Moses Camp, and has a family of children. 

IX. Harriet, 7 b. January 27, 1811; wile of Joshua K. Richards, removed 
with her husband irom Winsted to Salmon River, N. Y., in 1850, where 
he died. She now ri sides in Winsted. 
X. Mary, 7 b. July 10, 1815 ; d. November 24, 1834. 

Ichabod Loomis k lived until about 1824 in Old Winchester, and 
afterward until his death, April 23, 1833, in the hou>e now owned by 
his daughter Sally on Spencer Street, in Winsted. He was by trade a 
butcher ; a kind-hearted man, without an enemy. He married November 
22, 1803, Loranda Hoskin, daughter of Joseph. She died Winsted, 
March 16, 1855, aged 76 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Luct, 7 b. December 14, 1804; m. Hiram Root, September 1, 

1828. 

II. Fanny Loranda, 7 b. August 6, 1806 ; m. Noah Hall, N. Marlboro.' 

III. Eunice Matilda, 7 b. June 28, 1808; m. August 10, 1831, Sidney 

Eggleston ; lives in Guilford, N. Y. 

IV. Sally Amanda, 7 b. May 26, 1813 ; lives in Winsted unmarried. 

V. Joseph Ichabod, 7 b. August 13, 1816; twice married; he left Winsted 
about 1855 for the city of New York, where he now lives. 

David Alvord (brother of Eliphaz), from Chatham, came from Tor- 
rington as early as this year, as appears by the records of births. In 
1776, he bought the lot on which the parsonage house of Rev. Mr. Booge 
(lately owned by Dr. T. S. Wetmore), was afterwards erected, on which 
lot he lived until 1785. He afterwards lived near the Leonard Hurlbut 
place, and finally removed to Neversink, Sullivan county, and thence to 
Vernon, N. Y. He married September 8, 1774, Elizabeth, daughter of 
John Wetmore, of Torrington. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Persis, b. December 18, 1774. 
II. Ursdla, b. February 13, 1778. 

William Castel, from Ridgefield, owned land between the Alva Nash 
and Leonard Hurlbut places, and near the Edward Rugg farm, in the old 



120 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

Society, and resided, as is supposed, on the former tract. The land 
records show that he had two sons, Elijah and Samuel, to whom he con- 
veyed lands in 1784, and who must have been born before he came here. 
Whether he died in the town is not ascertained. His last conveyance of 
land was in 1786, and his name is not on the tax list of 1790. 

CHILDREN OF WM. AND KATHKRINE CASTEL, RECORDED IN 
WINCHESTER. 

I. Miriam, b. July 28, 1771. 
II. William, b. July 10, 1773. 

III. Elizabeth, b. September 27, 1775; d. June 23, 1778. 

IV. Mary, b. — date not given ; d. April 25, 1778. 
V. Aakon, b. — date not given ; d. March 15, 1783. 

Elijah Castel, son of William, owned and lived on land south of the 
Edward Rugg farm in Danbury Quarter. He is described in a deed of 
April 12, 1787, as of the Manor of Livingston, Columbia county, N. Y., 
and in 1789 of Winchester. He probably left the town soon after the 
latter period. 

Samuel Castel, son of William, disappears from the record in 1789. 
It does not appear where he lived in the town nor where he went to. 

John Beach came into town this year from Torrington, and lived on 
the farm recently owned by Artemas Rowley, near the south end -of third 
tier, first division, until 1781, when he returned to Torrington. He was 
born in Torrington May 2d, 1750, fifth child of Abel Beach of Torring- 
ton, who was born in Durham, February 9, 1712; g. son of Benjamin 
(born in Stratford, October 1, 1683) and Marsha (Curtis) Beach ; g. g. son 
of Benjamin (born in Stratford, October 28, 1642) and Sarah (Wells) 
Beach ; and g. g. g. son of Benjamin Beach, the immigrant to Stratford 
from England [MS. Records of Deacon Lewis M. Norton, of Goshen.] 
He died at Torrington Aprii 1, 1824, aged 76. He married June 9, 1774, 
Mercy Bassett. She died at Torrington, May 22, 1832, aged 76. ' 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abel, b. January 3, 1775. 

II. Mary, b. August 19, 1778. 

III. Eev. James, b. in Winchester, June 10, 1780. Graduated at Williams College. 
Studied theology under Rev. Asahel P. Hooker, of Goshen, 1804-5. 
Ordained Pastor of Winsted Church. Dismissed. He married October 
28, 1806, Hannah Clarissa Baldwin, born Goshen, March 10, 1784, only 
child of Isaac and Lucy (Lewis) Baldwin. He died at Winsted June 
11, 1850, of apoplexy. She died May 7, 1852. His friend, Deacon 
L. M. Norton, of Goshen, writes of him, " It will be for those of a 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 121 

coming generation to speak or write of the ability, the fidelity, the affec- 
tionate labors and the success of this servant of Jcmis Christ." 

Children: 1. Lucy Ba'dwin, b. August 20, 1807; m. Henry Hyde; 

2. Hannah Clarissa, b. March 20, 1809, d. October 26th, 1815; 3. Mary, 
b. December 16, 1814, m. Caleb J. Camp. 

CHILDREN OF HENRY AND LUCY B. (BEACH) HYDE. 

1. James Beach, b. November 14, 1831, d. a member of Yale College at 
New Haven, January 8, 1850 ; 2. Henry Baldwin, b. February 15, 1834 ; 

3. Lucy B., b. August 20, 1841 ; 4. Mary, b. 

IV. John, b. February 26th, 1783; d. May 7, 1817. 

V. Adah, b. March 12, 1787. 



16 



CHAPTER XI. 

POPULATION— TOWN VOTES— NEW SETTLERS. 

1774. 

The first census of the Colony, on record,* taken in 1756, gives twen- 
ty-four as the population of Winchester. 

The next census, taken in 1774, shows a population of 327 white, and 
twelve blacks. 

"We copy the figures of these two enumerations of Litchfield County, to 
show the relative population and growth of the towns at these periods: 







17 


74. 






1756. 


1756. 






Total. 








White. 


Black. 




Barkhamstcd, 


18 


250 





250 




Cot brook, 





150 





150 




Canaan, - 


1100 


1573 


62 


1635 




Cornwall, - - - 


500 


957 


17 


974 




Goshen, 


610 


1098 


13 


1111 




Hartl and, - 


12 


500 





500 




Harwinton, - 


250 


1015 


3 


1018 




Kent, - 


1000 


1922 


74 


1996 




Litchfield, 


1.366 


1509 


45 


155*4 




Mew Hartford, - 


260 


985 


16 


1001 




New Mil ford, 


1127 


2742 


34 


2776 


Blacks in 1756, 16. 


Norfolk, - 


84 


966 


3 


969 




Salisbury, ... 


1100 


19 46 


44 


1980 




Sharon, ... 


1205 


19S6 


26 


2012 


7 Blacks in 1756. 


Torrington, . 


250 


843 


02 


845 




Winchester, 


24 


327 


12 


339 




Woodbury, - 


2911 


5224 


89 


5313 


31 Blacks in 1756. 


Westmoreland,! 




1922 









1775. 

In annual town meeting for 1775, the approaching revolutionary 
struggle was foreshadowed by the following votes : 

" That the troopers be freed from paying any thing for their colors." 
"To raise two-pence half-penny on the List of 1775, to purchase a town 
Stock of powder and lead, and also to pay other necessary charges aris- 
ing in the town." 



* To be found in the Comptroller's office. 

t Westmoreland- then one of the towns of Litchfield County, comprised the whole of 
the beautiful valley of Wyoming, Pennsylvania. 



FAMILY RECORDS. 123 

In Society Meeting, besides the routine business, it was " Voted, to 
come into Mr. Bron»on's mode of singing." Levi and Ozias Bronson 
were chosen choristers ; — Beriah Hills to read the Psalms, and Jes»e 
Wilkinson to sweep the meeting house for 5s. 6d. per year. 

The new comers of this year in Winchester Society, were Lemuel 
Bassett, Daniel Loomis, James Sweet, Jonathan Sweet, Reuben Sweet, 
Hezekiah Elmer, John Miner, and Elisha Wilcoxson. 

Lemuel Bassett, a crippled tailor, from New Haven, first owned 
seventy-three acres of land, embracing a considerable portion of Winches- 
ter center village, which he sold in 1777, and afterwards bought and lived 
on a small lot near Colonel Ozias Bronson's. He had wife, Patience, 
and 

CHILDREN. 

I. Ezra, b. in Goshen, March 23, 1774. 
II? Miram, b. May 12, 1776. 

III. Lydia, b. April 7, 1778. 

IV. Erastus, b. July 5, 1780. 
V. Harvey, b. Fob. 20, 1783. 

VI. Bede, b. Jan. 20, 1786. 

Daniel Loomis, son of Ichabod, 4 of Torrington, lived on the old 
Country Road, immediately north of his brother, Ichabod, 6 and south of 
Widow Everitt's. He removed to Delhi, New York. He married, April 
30, 1783, Anna Phelps. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Milo, b. Sept. 26, 1783. 

II. Elizabeth, b. Nuv. 30, 1786. 
III. Tryphena, b. Oct. 23, 1788. 

James Sweet, supposed from Goshen, owned a lot on Blue Street, 
north of the Stone School House. In 1780, he conveyed away this lot 
by a deed, in which he is named of Norfolk. 

Reuben Sweet owned the lot next south of James Sweet's, which 
he ronveyed to Jonathan Sweet, in 1777, and moved to Wallen's Hill in 
Barkhamsted, near the first Winsted meeting house. 

Jonathan Sweet is named of Goshen in a deed of 1774, and of 
Winchester in 1775. He owned lands adjoining those of James and 
Reuben, and also a part of the B. B. Rockwell farm, between the, two 
Lakes, all of which he disposed of in 1771, or earlier. He probably lived 
on the Blue Street land. He married, August 29, 1773, Esther Lewis. 



124 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 
I. Sarah, b. May 16, 1774. 

II. Lorrin, b. Feb. 16, 1776 ; d. March 24, 1778. 

III. Jonathan Lewis, b. June 26, 1778. 

IV. Lucy, b. June 30, 1780. 

Hezekiaii Elmer married, August II, 1775, Elizabeth Benedict. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, b. Sept. 7, 1776. 
II. Daniel, b. Oct. 14, 1778. 

Nothing is to be learned from the records of the place of Mr. Elmer's 
residence, or the time of his removal from the town. 

John Miner, from New London, brother of Eeuben of Winchester, 
came from Torrington, and settled and died on the farm lately owned by 
Emory Coe, now deceased, and now owned by George Cramer and wife. 
He was a man of pleasing address, and social in his habits. He married, 
in Torrington, April 9, 177;"), Hannah Strong, born in Torrington, No- 
vember 30, 1753, daughter of Asaliel. He died March 23, 1813, aged 
61 ; she died November 23, 1835, aged 80. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John Strong, b. in Tor. Aug. 15, 1775; tradition says he never lived in 
this town. 

II Phineas, b. Nov. 27, 1777. 

III. Florinda, b. " 9, 1780; m. March 26, 1807, Eoger Root. 

IV. William, b. March 17, 1783. 

V. Sarah, b. Jan. 16, 1786; d. unmarried. 

VI. Pamelia, b. June 3, 1791 ; d. unmarried. 



Hon. Phineas Miner, 2 second son of John, 1 lived in the old parson- 
age of Mr. Booge, (lately owned by Dr. T. S. AVetmore) until his remo- 
val to Litchfield, in 1816. He died in Litchfield in 1839. 

Mr. Miner, with only a common school education, studied law under 
Judge Reeve, of Litchfield, and entered on the practice in Winchester, 
in 1798. By close study and faithful preparation of his cases, — as well 
as by his ardor in trying them, he early attained a good standing at the 
bar; and eventually ranked among the ablest advocates in the County. 
He was by nature unfitted for legal trickery, or for any dishonorable act. 
He repeatedly represented Winchester, and afterward Litchfield, in the 
Legislature, having served in this capacity during eleven sessions. He 
was chosen to the State Senate in 1830 and 1831 ; was elected a Eepre- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 125 

sentative in Congress during the sessions of 1S32 and 1833, and was 
Judge of Probate for Litcli field District at the time of his death. He 
m. May — , 1801, Zerviah W. Butler; she died April 24, 1811, aged 32. 
He m. (2d) Parsons, of Granville, late the wife of Tertius Wads- 
worth. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Henry Butler, b. June L, 1803; he m. and died childless. 
II. Zerviah Ruth, b. March 18, 1811 ; died unmarried. 

William Miner. 2 third son of John, 1 owned and lived in the Daniel 
Murray house, on the Dugway road, until his removal to Ohio, in 1816. 
He m. Feb. 23, 1809, Lucy Denison Sandiforth. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Emeline Adelia, b. Feb. 23, 1811. 

II. William Sandiforth, b. Sept. 22, 1812. 

III. Daniel, b. Nov. 22, 1815. 

IV. Luct, 

Captain Elisha Wilcoxson, from Stratford, owned the farm and built 
the house on the Dugway road, now owned and occupied by William 
Johnson, which he sold to Augustus Humphrey in 1800, and removed to 
Vernon, New York. He was a surveyor, — an extensive dealer in lands, 
and largely employed in the business of the town. He married in Strat- 
ford, May 1, 1771, Mary Clark. 

children. 

I. Sarah Anna, b. in Stratford, Nov. 2, 1772. 

II. Charity, . b. June 17, 1775. 

Ill Martha, b. May 4, 1777. 

IV. Mary, b. Feb. 25, 1779. 

V. Gideon, b. April 25, 1781. 

VI. Ruth, b. Aug. 8, 1783. 

1776. 

At the annual town meeting, 1776, in addition to the routine business, 
the Selectmen were instructed to provide the camp equipage ordered by 
the Assembly, viz : Three tents, six pots, and nine bottles, or canteens 
for the town. 

It was also voted, " that Swine be free commoners this year." 

In Society meeting, as a result of the half-way covenant troubles, be- 
fore referred to, Lemuel Stannard, Jonathan Coe, John Bradley, and 
Samuel Hurlbut, were excused from paying taxes this year, for Mr. 



126 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Knapps' salary. If this was done with a view of quieting the disaffection 
toward the minister, it appears from subsequent action of the Society to 
have failed to effect the object. 

The new comers of the year were Philip Priest, Daniel Forbes, Mar- 
tin North and his sons, Martin, Jr., and Rufus, Truman Gibbs, Jo?>eph 
Agard, and Gershom Fay. 

» 

Philip Priest, from Barkhamsted, purchased of Daniel Piatt, his 
lot near the Danbury school-house, and sold the same in 1779. He 
probably then left the town. He had wife, Trube, and 

CHILDREN. 

I. Trube, b. Feb. 4, 1764. 

II. Noah, b April 1, 1766. 

III. Abi, b. " 15, 1763. 

IV. Zadoc, b. " 19, 1770. 
V. Charity, b. July 18, 1772. 

VI. Dinah, b. Jan. 3, 1775. 

VII. Elizabeth, b. March 25, 1777. 
VIII. Merrit, b. June 11, 1779. 

Daniel Forbes, from Wethersfield, bought of Noah Gleason his 
homestead, bordering southerly on Tonington line and the Ebenezer 
and Joe Preston lot, and northerly on Amasa Wade. He died, as ap- 
pears by ihe Norfolk Probae Records, in 1779, leaving a wife, Lydia, 
who, with Ozias Hurlbut, of Wethersfield, administered his estate. 

Martin NoKTn, with his sons, Martin, Jr., and Rufus, came from 
Danbury, and bought of Elisha Smith the NoMe J. Everitt place, im- 
mediately south of Winchester center village. He built the lean-to house 
standing thereon, and occupied it until 1791. He afterwards lived with 
his son, Martin, Jr., in the house next west of the Doctor Wetmore 
house, on the north side of the Norfolk road, until he removed to Colebrook, 
in 1797. He married in Tonington, April 2, 1760, Abigail Eno ; she 
died, January 5, 1782 ; and he married ("^d), June 27, 1782, Mary Coe ; 
he died in 1806. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Martin, bap. in Tor., Sep. 1.3, 1761 ; named in his father's will. 

II. Abigail, bap. " June 17, 1764. 

III. Lucina, bap. " Au». 2, 1767 ; named in her father's will. 

IV. Rufus, birth record not found; named in his father's will. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

V. NoAn, b. May 25, 1783; d. June 13, 1783. 

VI. Noah, b. July 22, 1785 ; named in his father's will. 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 127 

Martin North, Jr., built, and lived in, the house next west of the 
Doctor Wetmore house, on the north side of the Norfolk road, until 11S02, 
and afterwards owned and lived in a house, lately torn down, on the west 
side of the Dugway road alitile north of Joel G. Gri.-wold's, until about 
1805, when he removed to Colebrook. He was Town Clerk during the 
year 1802. He married, September 21, 1781, Mary Fay. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abigail, b. Jan. 18, 1783; d. Oct. 5, 1783. 

II. Mary, b. Au^. 16, 1785. 

III. Sylvester Eno, b. Dec. 6, 1792. 

Rufcs North, son of Martin, Senior, owned a twelve acre lot, — prob- 
ably the one on which Luman Munsill now resides, — immediately north 
of his father's first homestead, which he sold in 1791, soon after which he 
removed to Colebrook. He married, August 27, 1789, Esther Roberts, 
and had by her a son, Ebenezer, born March 2, 1790. 

Truman Gibbs, "of Litchfield," bought of Hannah Everett, and 
probably lived until 1778, on the lot now owned and occupied by Asaph 
Brooks, on the old Country Road. 

1777. 

Imtown meeting, April 10th, of this year, it was voted, " that we adopt 
the late acts passed by the General Assembly, holden at Midd etown on 
the 18th day of April, 1777; and that we will firmly abide thereby." 
This vote probably refers to the " Abstract and Declaration of the Rights 
and Privileges of the people of the State," adopted by the General As- 
sembly, after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the 
Continental Congress, in these words : 

" The People of this state being by the Providence of God free and 
independent, have the sole and exclusive Right of governing themselves 
as a free, sovereign, and independent state ; and having from their ances- 
tors derived a free and excellent Constitution [Charter] of Government, 
whereby the Legislature depends on the free annual election of the Peo- 
ple, they have the be-t security for the Preservation of their civil and re- 
ligious Rights and Liberties. And forasmuch as the free fruition of such 
Liberties and Privilegesas Humanity, Civility and Christianity call for, 
as is due to every Man in his Place and Proportion without Impeach- 
ment and Infringement, hath ever been, and will be the Tranquility 
and Stability of Churches and Commonwealths ; and the denial thereof, 
the Disturbance, if not the Ruin, of both. 

" Be it enacted and declared by the Governor, Council and Repre- 
sentatives in General Court assembled, aud by the authority of the same, 



128 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

that the ancient Form of Civfl Government, contained in the charter from 
Charles the Second, King of England, and adopted by the People of this 
state, shall be and remain the Civil Constitution of this state, under the 
Sole authority of the People thereof, independent of any King or Prince, 
whatever. And that this Republic is, and shall forever remain, a free, 
Sovereign and independent State, by the name of the state of Con- 
necticut." 

" And be it further enacted and declared by the Authority aforesaid, 
That no man's Life shall be taken away ; No Man's Honor or good 
Name shall be stained ; No Man's Person shall be arrested, restrained, 
banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished : No Man shall be de- 
prived of his Wife or Children ; No man's Goods or Estate shall be taken 
away from him, nor in any ways indamaged under the Color of Law, or 
Countenance of Authority; unless Clearly warranted by the Laws of this 
State." 

" That all the free Inhabitants of this or any other of the United States 
of America, and Foreigners in Amity with this state, shall enjoy the 
same Justice and Law within this State, which is general for the 
State, in all Cases proper for the cognizance of the civil Authority and 
Courts of Judicature within the same, and that without Partiality or 
Delay. 

" And that no Man's Person shall be restrained, or imprisoned, by any 
Authority whatsoever, before the Law hath sentenced him thereto, if he 
can and will give sufficient Security, Bail or Mainprize for Appearance 
and good behavior in the mean Time, unless it be for capital Crimes, con- 
tempt in open Court, or in such Cases wherein some express Law doth 
allow or order the same." 

By this act the Governor and company formally severed their connec- 
tion with the Crown of Great Britain ; and retained the Charter of 
Charles the Second, so strenuously and successfully defended and pre- 
served amid repeated attempts of the Crown to wrest it from them, — as 
the fundamental law or constitution of an independent State. 

Those who have but casually examined this charter are little aware of 
its thoroughly republican features and its delegation of powers which 
made the Colony, save in name, a free and independent Commonwealth. 
The " declaration of Rights and Privileges " above quoted, which is the 
introductory statute in the revised code of 1784, was all that was needed 
to put the charter in perfect working order as a republican form of gov- 
ernment. 

It was claimed by the advocates of the new Constitution adopted in 
1818, that the State was and had been without a constitutional form of 
government ; and that the retention of the charter as a basis of law, was 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 129 

a remnant of kingly rule unworthy of freemen, and dishonorable to the 
State. If, as is probable, the other lowns of the State formally recog- 
nized (lie Declaration of the Legislature, in manner similar to the action 
ot* this town, it had all the sanction of other written constitutions since 
adopted by other States of the Union. It had moreover a ring of 
pure democracy, more clear and distinct than was probably ever found 
elsewhere in a modern republic. It restored the whole Legislative; and 
Judicial power to the people twice in each year. The lower house of the 
General Assemby came, by election, fresh from the people to the May 
and October Sessions, and elected the Judges annually. The "Steady 
habits" of the people prevented an abuse of this power by arbitrary 
changes of the incumbents. The same men were re-elected from year to 
year, until incompetent through age. The Constitution of 1818 pro- 
vided only for an annual election of Representatives, one regular session 
a year, and a choice of Judges to hold their office until seventy years old, 
unless removed for incapacity or crime. The workingof this provision has 
led toa recent amendment of the Constitution limiting the term of a Judge 
to eight years. 

Before returning from this digression to the distinctive annals of our 
town, we would urge upon every lover of his Connecticut forefathers, to 
study carefully the early history of our Slate, and find therein a record of 
prudent and wise legislation, — of firm and undeviating patriotism, and of 
devoted service in establishing and defending our republican institutions, 
of which the most imperial State in the Union might well be proud. 

Sept. 25th, 1777. — " Voted to provide the articles mentioned in the 
Governor's Proclamation, for the Soldiers, at the town's cost, and to give 
them to them, viz : to the Soldiers," and "that Deacon Samuel Wetmore 
and Sergt. David Austin be a committee to procure the above mentioned 
articles, and to take care of them." 

It was also voted that Gershom McCune, Jonathan Alvord, and Martin 
North, be a committee to provide for the families of those men that are 
enlisted into the Continental Army, according to the Act of Assembly. 

December 1st, of the same year, Samuel Wetmore, Gershom Fay, 
Capt. John Hills, David Austin, and Jonathan Coo, were appointed a. 
committee for supplying the families of such soldiers belonging to this 
town, now in the Continental army, with such clothing and provisions as 
may be necessary for their support. 

It was also voted, "that those men that went volunteers to the North- 
ward, and Southward, shall receive Five Pounds each out of the treas- 
ury;" and "that those men who went with Ensn. Brownson last April, 
and with Sergt. Timothy Benedict, in August, and with Lieut. Benedict, 
shall receive five pounds for going volunteers." 
17 



130 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

It was further "voted that Deacon Samuel Wetmore, and the owners of 
the Saw Mill, by the Meeting House, shall have the privilege of the dam 
by Capt. Hill's, as agreed." 

This Saw Mill was the first erected in the town. It originally stood 
near the country road, at the foot of ihe hill, north of the burying ground, 
and was carried by means of a dam on the east side of the road, which 
flooded the meadows, east and northeast of the road. It was probably at 
this time moved down the stream to the vicinity of the old meeting 
house, in order to get a better head of water. It was eventually removed 
down to the site of the mill and cheese box factory, recently owned by 
the McAlpines. 

An incident connected with this Mill has been handed down, which 
pleasingly illustrates the characters of the first two Deacons of the Win- 
chester church. Deacon Wetmore sawed the logs of his neighbors in 
regular order, according to their priority of claim. A certain day was 
fixed for sawing the logs of his bosom friend and colleague, Deacon Seth 
Hills ; but in the morning, before Deacon Hills had come to draw his 
logs on to the logway, another neighbor came, who was in pressing and 
immediate need of some lumber, and prevailed on Deacon W. to let him 
draw in the logs he required to be sawed. Some of the logs were drawn 
in when Deacon Hills arrived. Irritated at finding himself superseded, 
he made some sharp remark, which was sharply replied to by his col- 
league. Both of them fell from grace to wrath. " I'll never draw 
another log to your mill," says Deacon'Hills. "And if you do, I'll never 
saw it for you," says Deacon Wet more. Other defiant words were ban- 
died back and forth, until their wrath, by repeated blowing off. came 
down from high to low pressure. Several world's people were listening 
to their unedifying abjurgations. A pause ensued. One of the Deacons 
beckoned the other to follow him. They retired to a neighboring clump 
of bushes, whence the voice of penitent prayer arose. Grace prevailed 
over passion, and on returning to the Mill, Deacon Hills assisted in draw- 
ing in his neighbor's logs, cheerfully postponing his own turn until his 
. neighbor could be accommodated. 

In Society Meeting this year, in addition to society committee, clerk, 
and collector, three choristers and three readers of the psalms were 
appointed, and directions were given for repairing and enlarging Ihe 
Meeting House, a measure obviously needed, to enable those officials to 
effectively discharge their duties. 

The new comers of the year were Nathan Blackman, Peter Blackmail, 
Samuel Clark, Joseph Dodge, Timothy Pay, William Fay, James Steven^ 
son. Joseph Sweet, and Jonah Woodruff. • 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 131 

Nathan Blackman, from Stratford, a remarkably tall, athletic man, 
lived in a house that stood on the cross road, leading from the Dugway 
road, in rear of the house of Mrs, Sophronia Leonard. He in. April 24, 
1783, Phebe Orvis of Norfolk. He d. Dec. 18, 1786. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abigail, b. Jan. 17, 1784. 
II. Elizabeth, b. Sept. 1, 1785. 

Peter Blackman came from Stratford, and lived on the easterly 
side of the Dugway Road, nearly opposite Mrs. Sophronia Leonards, on 
land recently purchased by John T. Rockwell. He is believed to have 
removed to Sangersfiekl, N. Y., about 1794. lie was b. June 23, 1735 
(old style) ; m. April 17, 17G0, Mary McEwen, b. April 1, 1738, dan. of 
Gershom. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abigail, b. Sept. 28, 1761. 

II. Truman, b. July 12, 1763. 

III. Martha, b. March 27, 1765. 

IV. Sarah, b. May 1, 17G7. 
V. Joseph Picket, b. June 24, 1760. 

VI. Salmon, b. June 18, 1771. 

VII. Gershom, 1>. Feb. 2, 1774. 

VIII. Mary, b. April 28, 1776. 

IX. William Adams, b. Dee. 11, 1778. 
X. Peter, b. March 6, 1781 ; <1. Aug. 16, 1783. 

Truman Blackman, oldest son of Peter, lived until 1793 in the 
house, a mile east of Winchester center, at, the turn of the road towards 
the Dugway, which he sold to Theodore & Russell Goodwin, and after- 
wards lived on the Asher Case farm until 1794, when he removed to cen- 
tral New York. He married, January 8, 1789, Hannah Sherman. 
They had one son, Adin, born October 23, 1791. 

JosEPn Pickett Blackman, second son of Peter, had an intei-est 
in land on the east side of the Long Pond, but probably never resided 
there. 

None of the Blackman family remained in this town. They are re- 
ported to hold a highly respectable standing in central New York. 

Samuel Clark built and lived in the house recently occupied by Dan- 
iel Murray on the Dugway road. He built, in company with Reuben 
Miner and Christopher Whiting, a saw-mill on Sucker Brook, near the 



132 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

site of the mill recently built by McPherson Hubbell. He also built in 
the same vicinity a trip-hammer shop for welding gun-barrels; — and lost 
his thumb in attempting to hold the bed-piece under the hammer, in his 
haste to see the working of the hammer before the bed-piece had been 
secured. He built a wind-mill near his house for the purpose of sawing 
fire wood. His dam flooded the meadows above so as to cause a law-suit 
between him and his neighbor, Miner. He seems to have been an active, 
stirring body, — somewhat restive as a neighbor and Church member, — 
traded largely in lands; and about 1800, removed to Stockbridge, Massa- 
chusetts. He married, November 7, 1770, Mary Cooper. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Mart, b. June 20, 1778 ; ra. April 18, 1795, Loammi Mott. 

II. Samuel, b. March 17, 1783. 

Joseph Dodge, from "Wethersfield, lived, until 1782, near the old 
meeting house, and afterward in the previous homestead of Aaron 
Cook, near the south line of the town, on Blue Street. His name disap- 
pears from the records after 1783. He had wife, Elizabeth, and 

CHILDREN. 

I. Joseph, b. June 22, 1777. 
" II. Clara, b. July 28, 1779. 

Timothy and William Fat, brothers, owned and lived on a part of the 
B. B. Rockwell farm, between the two lakes. One, or both of them lived 
in a log cabin adjoining an old orchard, south of the present road passing 
Mr. Rockwell's. It is believed that one of them died there. They dis- 
appear from the records about 1788. A Tyringham Shaker of that 
name told the compiler, several years ago, that he was born there. 

Timothy Fay had wife, Sarah, and a son, Timothy, born November 
16, 1781. 

William Fay married, October 22, 1778, Bethia Bassetr, and had 

children. 

I. William, b. Dec. 21, 1778. 

II. Aaron, b. Nov. 9, 1781 ; d. Nov. 19, 1782. 

III. Aaron; b. Sept. 11, 1783. 

IV. Jonathan, 1>. June 4, 1785. 

Gershom Fay had a (laughter, Dinah, baptized June 30, 1770; he 
took the oath of fidelity in the town January 13, 1778; was not a land 
holder, and no further note of him appears. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 133 

James Stevenson is named of Winchester, in a deed of 1777, convey- 
ing to him a lot of land near the original meeting house. He conveyed 
away the same land in 1784, by a deed, in which he is named of Goshen. 

Joseph Sweet, named of Voluntown, bought of Adam Mott, a lot of 
land with a dwelling thereon, not far north of the stone school-house, on 
Blue Street. He is also named of Winchester in 1779, and in 1780 
is named of Goshen. 

Jonah Woodruff, from Litchfield, bought and sold several tracts 
of land in the 1st division, among which was a lot on the east 
side of the old discontinued road near the first meeting house, where 
he is supposed to have resided until 1784, when his name disappears from 
the records. He and his wife, Mary, had a son, Benjamin, born May 12, 
1778. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WAR RECORDS— HALF-WAY COVENANT TROUBLES— NEW SETTLERS. 



1778 to 1783. 

At a Town Meeting, January 13, 1778, the articles of Confederation of 
the thirteen United States were presented for approval, and by vote on 
each successive article, were accepted ; — and thereupon the oath of 
Fidelity to the State of Connecticut was administered to those present 
and certified in the records. The names of others who took the oath 
afterwards were also recorded. We subjoin the names in alphabetical 
order, giving the dates of administration only of those taking the oath 
subsequent to January 13, 1778. 



DAVID ALVORD, 

ELIPHAZ ALVORD, 

JONATHAN ALVORD, 

ABRAHAM ANDREWS, 

DANIEL ANDREWS, 

DAVID AUSTIN, 

JOHN AUSTIN, 

LEMUEL BASSETT, 

JOEL BEACH, 

JOHN BEACH, Feb. 12, 1779. 

BENJAMIN BENEDICT, 

TIMOTHY BENEDICT, 

LEVI BROWNSON, 

OZIAS BROWNSON, 

WILLIAM CASTEL, 

JOHN CHURCH, July 18, 1782. 

SAMUEL CLARK, 

JONATHAN COE, 

ROBERT COE, 

ROSWELL COE, 

DAN 1 HURLBUT CONE, Dec. 2, 1782. 

RICHARD COIT, 

PETER CORBIN, 

DANIEL CORBIN, 

JOSEPH DODGE, 

HEZEKIAH ELMER, 



NOBLE EVERITT, 

ANDREW EVERITT, 

Mrs. II. EVERITT, Jan. 18, 1782. 

GERSHOM FAY, 
• REMEMBRANCE FILLEY, 

JOSEPH FRISBEE, 

WARHAM GIBBS, 

PHINEHAS GRISWOLD, 
I BELA HILLS, Dee. 2, 1782. 
\ SETH HILLS, 

JOHN HILLS, 

BENONI HILLS, 
UOSEPH HOSKIN, 

SAMUEL HURLBUT, 

REV. MR, KNAPP, 

WM. KEYES, Feb. 12, 1779. 

DAVID LOOMIS, Dee. 2, 1782. 

ICHABOD LOOMIS, 

ROBERT McCUNE, 

SAMUEL McCUNE, 

GERSHOM McCUNE, Dee. 4, 1778. 

REUBEN MINER, 

JOHN MINER, 

ADAM MOTT, 

LENT MOTT, 

MARTIN NORTH, . 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 135 

AMBROSE PALMER, JAMES SWEET, 

JOSEPH PLATT, Feb. 5, 1778. JOHN SWEET, 

EBENEZER PRESTON, JONATHAN SWEET, 

SAMUEL PRESTON, PELEG SWEET, 

BENJAMIN PRESTON, REUBEN TUCKER, 

PHILIP PRIEST, JOHN VIDETO, Jr., 

CHAUNCY SMITH, Due. 2, 1782. AMASA WADE, 
ELEAZER SMITH, SAMUEL WETMORE, 

THOMAS SPENCER, ABEL WETMORE, 

WM. STANNARD, Dec. 2, 1782. ELISHA WILCOXSON, 

LEMUEL STANNARD, Jr., JESSE WILKINSON, 

ABEL STANNARD, July 25, 1782. REUBEN WILKINSON, 

LEM'L STANNARD, Mch. 10, 1782. JONAH WOODRUFF. 

An examination of the list shows that of the seventy-eight inhabitants 
therein named, bul fifteen are now represented in the town by descendants 
bearing their family names. 

In Town Meetings this year, taxes were laid, in all amounting to four 
shillings and three pence on the pound, for meeting the expenses of the 
town. 

Sergt. Freedom Wright and John Balcom, Jr., were allowed five 
pounds each for doing a tour of duty, the previous year, in the Northern 
army. 

It was voted, that if the committee on trial cannot procure a sufficiency 
of provisions for the families of those men who are gone into the Con- 
tinental army, the Selectmen shall be empowered to lay the matter before 
the Governor and Council or Assembly, and pray them to point out some 
way for our relief; and also to pray for a tax on non-resident proprietors 
to support the country roads. 

Ensign Ozias Bronson, Joseph Hoskin, Samuel Hurlbut, Roswell Coe, 
Ambrose Palmer, Samuel Preston, and Phineas Gri. wold, were ap- 
pointed a Committee to provide for the families of the soldiers. 

From the records of the Society meetings of this year, it appears that 
owing to disaffection of many members, it was decided, after consultation 
with Mr. Knapp, " to throw by the civil law in collecting Mr. Knapp's 
rate, and [to] support him some other way." 

The new comers of this year were, Lemuel Stannard, Senior, Seth 
Griswold, James Hale, and William Barbour. 

\ 
Lemuel Stannard, Senior, has been noticed under the year 1771. 

Seth GRISWOLD, of New Hartford, married, December 31, 1778, 
Huldah, widow of Simeon Loomis, and settled on the Loomis homestead, 
now composing a part of Luther Bronson's farm, in the southwest part of 



136 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

the town, and there resided until 1801, when he removed to the south- 
west corner of Colehrook, and there resided in the house now occupied 
hy Isaac Jacklyn, until his death, about 1810. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Roswei.l, 1). Feb. 8, 1780; m. Nov. 3, 1802, Lucretia Wheadon, daughter 
of Solomon. She d. and lie m. (2d), Nov. 1S08, Mrs. Jerusha (Grant) 
Walter, daughter of Joel Grant and widow of Cyrus Walter. She d. in 
Colebrook, March 3, 1828; he m. (3d) Anna (Hall) Preston, who was a 
widow Clark before she m. Preston. Children by first wife : 1. Wyllys, 
lives in Auburn, Iowa; 2. Lueretia, m. Asahel Northway ; 3 Hiram, 
gr-ad. Western Reserve College, lived at Canton and Cleveland, Ohio, a 
lawyer senator of Ohio, lives at Leavenworth, Kansas. Children by 
second wife : 4. Lucius, b. July 12, 1810; 5. Almira, b. July 23, 1811 ; 
6. Joel Grant, 1). March 15, 1813; 7. Laviuia, b. Feb. 25, 1817 ; 8. 
James, b. Jan. 20, 1819; 9 Nelson, b. Aug. 20, 1820; 10. Edward, b. 
April 13, 1824; 11. Ellen Amanda, b. April 6, 1825, in. March 18, 1850, 
AVilliam S. Phillips, a trader, of Winsted, who d. Aug. 19, 1860— she 
lives in Winsted ; 12. Mary Ann, d. unmarried. These children were all 
born in Colebrook. 

II. Asa, b. May 26, 1781. 

James Hale, from Wethersheld, bought the Ensign lot at the south- 
west shore of Long Lake, west of the mouth of Taylor's Brook, where 
he lived until 1784, when he left the town. By his wife, Sarah, lie had 
three 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abigail, b. May 12, 1778. 
II. Sarah, b. Aug. 8, 1780. 

III. William, b. March 16, 1784 ; is said to have become a sailor, was pressed 

into the British navy, and obtained his discharge by procuring a certifi- 
cate of the record of his birth in Winchester. 



William Barbour, from Paisley, Scotland, deserted the British 
army brought to this country at the beginning of the revolution, and be- 
came a resident of this town as early as 1778. ITe married, September 
26, 1778, Ruth Thrall, widow of Reuben Thrall, who died in the town 
the previous year. He resided in the Thrall homestead, near Reuben 
Chase's present residence, until 1798; soon after whicll he removed to 
Burke, Caledonia County, Vermont. He was by trade a tailor, — a 
pious and highly estimable man. 



CHILDREN. 



I. Claha, b. July 19, 1781. 
II. Esther, b. Nov. 19, 1784. 



AND FAMILY RECOKDS. 187 

1771). 

The town records of this year are mainly confined to routine busi- 
ness. 

Martin North and Joseph Iloskin were appointed "to provide for the 
families of Continental soldiers"; and Dr. Josiah Everitt, Samuel 
McCune, and Phineas Griswold, to provide clothing for the soldiers. 

The Society records are also barren of interest. The "civil law " hav- 
ing been " thrown by in collecting the minister's rate," no Society tax 
was laid. 

The new comers were Elijah Hubbard, Daniel Clark, and Christopher 
Whiting. 

Elijah Hubbard, from Middletown, bought and occupied Lot 8, first 
Tier, first Division, on Blue Street, near the southwest corner of the 
town. In 1805 he sold what remained to him of this tract to Jared 
Curtis. His wife, Ursula, died May 3, 17SG. Anna, their daughter, 
was born April 16, 1783. Tradition says he was an eminently pious 
man, and that he died alone in a house on the hill, east of the original 
meeting house. 

Daniel Clark's name appears only in the record of births. He had 
by wife Eunice, 

CHILDREN. 
I. Bela (son), b. Fob. 25, 1779. II. Pattv, 1». June 28, 1781. 

Benjamin Whiting* married in Torrington, October 17, 1755, 
Esther Marcum. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Christopher, 2 b. in Tor., Aug. 3, 1757. 

II. William, 2 b. " Sept. 4, 1759. 

III. Esther, 2 b. " " 13, 1763. 

IV. Benjamin, 2 b. " Dec. 11, 1765 ; see 1793. 

Christopher Whiting, 2 settled on the old road from Winsted to 
Winchester, north of Sucker Brook bridge, and built and occupied, during 
his life, the house now owned by Frederick Murray. He died July 6, 
1812, aged 54 ; — an industrious, unassuming, and worthy man. He mar- 
ried, January 9, 1782, Mary Wilcox. 

*Not a resident of Winchester. 
18 



138 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



I. LORRAIN, 3 

II. Riley, 3 

III. Clara, 3 

27, 1815. 

IV. LUMAN, 3 

V. Esther Miriam, 3 
VI. Norman, 3 



CHILDREN. 

b. Dec. 19, 1782. 
b. Jan. 16, 1785. 
b. March 11, 1785 ; m. Samuel Westlake; she d. Jan. 

b. May 5, 1792 ; m. Anna Hayden. 

1). Sept. 13, 1796. 

b. Aug. 5, 1796; d. Aug. 5, 1815, by kick of a horse. 



Lorrain Whiting 1 built the brick house on Wallen's Hill, in Win- 
ste<l, near Barkhamsted line, recently owned and occupied by his son, 
Hiram C Whiting, in which he resided until iiis death September 6, 
1833, aged 51. He married, May 1, 1806, Polly Mallory, born in Win- 
chester, May 24, 1784, daughter of Elisha. She died January 10, 1851, 
aged 66. 

CHILDREN. 

b. March 7, 1807 ; m. June 20, 1832, Loritta 

b. Jan. 22, 1809; in. Feb. 7, 1828, Martin 

b. Oct. 17, 1810. 

b. April 20, 1812; ra. Oct. 8, 1833, John 

b. July 5, 1813. 

b. April 12, 1816. 

b. Feb. 22, 1819. 

b. March 29, 1821. 

b. March 29, 1821; m. July 30, 1850, So- 

b. Feb. 25, 1823. 

b. Aug. 29. 1824; d. Nov. 27, 1846. 

b. Feb. 19, 1826. 

b. April 29, 1827. 

b. Dec. 4, 1828. 

b. Feb. 27, 1832. 

Riley Whiting came to Winsted about 1810, and soon after built 
and occupied until his death, the bouse on the east side of Still River, 
near the clock factory recently owned and occupied by R. L. Heecher. 
He went into the clock making business as partner with Samuel and 
Luther Hoadley, and about 1815 became sole owner of the concern ; — 
and carried on the business until his death, with great energy and per- 
severance. He was a man of quiet, unassuming manners and feeble con- 
stitution, who, more than most men, minded his own business and prosecuted 
it with the same perseverance in adverse, as in prosperous circumstances ; 
and, though twice compelled to assign his property, yet in both instances 
succeeded in paying off' his debts, and left a handsome estate at his death, 



I. 


Algernon Sidney, 4 




M. Sage. 


II. 


Laura, 4 




Johnson. 


III. 


Chloe Amelia, 4 


IV. 


Ursula Jenet, 4 




Camp; d. June 3, 1839, 


V. 


Orson, 4 


VI. 


Lucien, 4 


VII. 


Lorrain Christopher, 4 


VIII. 


Hiram Chatterton 4 (twin) 


IX. 


Homer Wilcox' (twin), 




phronia C. Wheclock. 


X. 


Nelson, 4 


XI. 


DeWitt Clinton, 4 


XII. 


Polly Mallory, 4 


XIII. 


Sarah Jane, 4 


XIV. 


Sylvia Ann, 4 


XV. 


Edward Gay lord, 4 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 139 

which took place at Jacksonville, Illinois, August 5, 1835, at the age of 
fifty-one, while on a business journey. He was a man highly esteemed. 
He represented the town in the Legislature in the years 1818 and 1<H32. 
He married, February 9, 1806, Urania Hoadley. She married (2d), 
Erasmus D. Calloway ; she died December 8, 1855. 

CHILDREN. 

• I. Emily, 3 b. May 23, 1807; m. August 17, 1826, Dr. Lyman 

Case. 
II. Mary, 3 b. Jane 11, 1810; m. Feb. 3, 18.35, James Litch 

field ; she d. nt Lima, Michigan, Oct. 7, 1837. 

III. Urania, 3 b. Sept. 9, 1812; m. May 26, 1840, Thomas 

Wilder. 

IV. Lemuel Hoadley, 3 1>. Dee. 11, 1815; d. Dec. 25, 1815. 

V. Rilky, 3 b. Sept. 25, 1820; m. August 28, 1843, Clarissa 



Jane Webster. 



1780. 



At a Town Meeting, March 13, 1780, Robert McCune was appointed 
"an Agent to represent the circumstances of the town to the General As- 
sembly and pray that a State Tax be not imposed on tins (own under our 
present circumstances ; — and that he be empowered to imploy an At- 
torney to speak in behalf of the town at the General Assembly, viz, Col. 
Adams, it he may be had, — and if he cannot.be obtained, then sd. Agent 
to employ some other Attorney." 

It was also voted, " to give John Videto, Jr., and those in partnership 
with him their fine for killing one Deer after the law forbid." 

July 17, it was voted to grant some relief for those men who are, or 
may be detailed to serve in the army between the first day of June last, 
and the first day of January next. 

Whereupon Lieutenant John Wright and Enoch Palmer entered their 
protest against anything being recovered on the foregoing vote, for that 
i! was (as they say) obtained by illegal voters. 

At the Society meeting, February 3, 1780: — 

Voted, to give Mr. Knapp sixty-live pounds for his last year's service, 
to be paid in specie as it went in 1774, or an equivalent in cash, to be ad- 
justed by a committee to be chosen for that purpose, which committee arc 
to adjust the price of all kinds of specie as well as cash, which adjust- 
ment shall be made once in three months. 

Voted, Ichabod Loomis, Samuel McCune and Reuben Miner, a com- 
mittee to adjust the price of all kinds of specie collected for Mr. Knapp, 
and also, to estimate money once in three months. 

Voted, Levi Brownson, Andrew Everitt, Bela Hills and Abel Wetmore, 
choristers to tune the Psalm on the Sabbath the year ensuiug. 



140 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Voted, Deacon Joseph Mills (of Norfolk), Mr. Noah North, and Lieut. 
Asahel Case, be a committee to hear the complaints of any agrieved 
members of this Society, respecting paying to Mr. Knapp for his sup- 
port, and if the said committee judge the complaints or objections of said 
agrieved members against paying to Mr. Knapp sufficient, then said 
agrieved members to be exempt from paying to Mr. Knapp. 

Voted, Capt. Jonathan Alvord to sweep the meeting house at forty dol- 
lars the year ensuing. 

At a meeting, March 7, 1780, the doings of the meeting February 3d, 
were reconsidered ; — and it was then 

Voted, to give Mr. Knapp 65 pounds for his last year's service, to be 
paid in specie — wheat to be valued at six shillings the bushel, and the 
price of all other kinds of specie to be regulated by wheat at 6s. 
the bushel in proportion as they were valued in the year 1774, or cash 
equivalent to specie at the rate above prescribed. 

It was further voted, that the Society mean to have Mr. Knapp join 
with the Church and Society in accommodation of matters of difficulty 
now subsisting in this Society previous to voting another salary. 

December 5th of the same year, another year's salary was voted to Mr. 
Knapp, " to be paid in Specie as it was valued in 1774, or in Cash equiva- 
lent, to be adjusted by a Committee," — and that " if any Persons in the 
Society shall, within one Month from this, appear before the Society 
Committee and say that they cannot in their conscience support Mr. 
Knapp, they shall be exempt from supporting him, and the Rate be made 
on the remainder of the Society." 

It would seem from the foregoing votes, and from the action of the 
church, this year, that the exclusion from the church of Half-way- 
covenanters was still working dissension in the Society and occasioning 
irreconcilable hostility to Mr. Knapp, who strenuously persisted in the 
exclusion. 

The church voted, December 29, 1779, "That it is our opinion y' a 
visible appearance of Holiness is necessary for y e Church to admit mem- 
bers into their communion." 

What was the occasion of this vote does not appear, but it probably 
had reference to applications made for half-covenant membership. 

A meeting was held March 7th following, " by y" desire of a number 
of members of y° Society that call themselves greived, in order to see if 
y" chh. and they could not come understanding! y to agree " — the meet- 
ing was adjourned to the next Friday — " the agreived members agree- 
ing to bring their greivences in writing at or before the next meeting; " 
— another adjournment was had to the next Thursday; no greivences 
being brought in — " after considerable of discourse, 3 of y" members of 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 141 

y e society were willing y 1 y e chh. should have their greivanees in writing 
wh. [are] here recorded." 

The first was Abel Wetmore's, as follows: 

"Mr. Knapp told me, He will have nothing to do with any man what- 
ever of a spiritural nature, that refuses to give rne an account of his spiritual 
estate previous to reading his letter, nor read his letter." 

The second matter of grievance was exhibited by Ensign Wilcoxson, 
as follows : 

'• 1. I exhibited to Mr. Knapp a letter of recommendation from y' chh. 
of New Hartford to y e chh. of Winchester, wh. Mr. Knapp never com- 
municated to y r chh. 

" 2. Mr. Knapp told me he did not desire y e use of Civil law to sup- 
port y e gospel — and now he insists on y" use of Civil law." 

"3. Mr. Knapp hath neglected to visit and converse with me so much 
as I have thought was his duty." 

Third matter of grievance was exhibited by Eliezer Smith : 

" 1. Respecting Baptized persons — Mr. Knapp said to me that there 
was no more connexion between y' chh. and y c rest of y e world, any more 
than between heaven and Hell. 

" 2. Mr. Knapp signified he did not desire y r use of y" Civil law to 
support y e Gospel, but now he desires y' Civil law to take place to make 
men Honest." 

The record proceeds to say : 

"These following things are what y" chh. attended to and voted ; 

" 1. of a chh. — A chh. is a number of persons mutually covenanting 
together to walk in gospel fellowship and communion in all y° ordinances 
of y e gospel. 

"2. of a covenant — The covenant of grace is y' covenant wh. in 
reality subsists only between God and true believers. The covenant im- 
plies on our part, repentance toward God and faith towards our Lord 
Jesus X. * * * * love as y e spring of all our obedience, * * * God's 
part, spiritual blessings & privileges are promised, together with y c ever- 
lasting enjoyment of God in heaven, the covenant subsisting between 
God and his visible chh. is y e visible exhibition of this covenant. 

" 3. Baptism and y" Lord's Supper are Seals of this covenant. By 
baptism y° parent in behalf of y 1 ' child gives it up to God y" Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost, to God as his God and portion and Chief good ; to God 
y e Son as y" only Redeemer, and by y e Holy Ghost as its Sanctification 
— By baptism y" parent not only gives it up to God y c Father, Son & 
Holy Ghost, but he puts it under y' watch & Care of y l ebb. — the. im- 
port of it to y" chh. is, pray watch over me and my child, and admonish 
us when we go astray ; — it is y' duty of y' : chh. to watch over them, — 



142 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

to reprove, rebuke and admonish them, — they are to be called upon 
when come to adult years to take upon themselves y e vows of y" coven- 
ant and cordially, understanding^/ and heartily come up to its terms. — 
If, alter forbearance towards them, they refuse to comply with y< terms 
of y" covenant, yy. are to be cut off, and the chh. to withdraw their watch 
and Care from them." 

" 2. Voted, that upon any persons bringing a letter of recommendation 
from any other chh. to be communicated to this, that Mr. Knapp stay 
y l church by themselves, and exhibit y e letter to y' chh., and if Mr. 
Knapp have any objection against y" person bringing such, then to com- 
municate his objections to y u chh., and also any person having been pro- 
pounded for admittance into y L chh., on y° day he is to be admitted Mr. 
Knapp stay the chh. at noon y' if there be any objections yy. may then 
be made manifest. 

" 3. Voted, that no person can be indulged in absenting himself from 
y" vSacrament of y" Lord's Supper only upon point of tender conscience. 

" 4. Voted, that person's who shall desire to be propounded for com- 
munion in this chh., y e chh. be stayed, and if Mr. Knapp have objections, 
y 1 he then inform y' chh. of them." 

These votes indicate that the church, while agreeing with Mr. Knapp 
in respect to qualifications for-rnembership, was not disposed to yield to 
him the prerogative of receiving or excluding members; — and the whole 
record quoted leads to the conclusion that a less arbitray, though equally 
firm adherence to sound principles of church order, would have resulted 
in greater peace and unity. 

The vote in 1778 "to throw by the Civil Law " in collecting the min- 
isterial rates, and the adoption of the voluntary system of support, proved 
a failure ; — and the return to taxation seems to have been attended with 
great difficulties, which were but partially obviated, by allowing the mal- 
content members to relieve themselves from taxation by avowing con- 
scientious scruples in respect to the support of Mr. Knapp. This plan of 
relieving the malcontents, after three years' trial, was abandoned, and the 
tax was thereafter levied on all the inhabitants of the Society. It is 
stated on good traditional authority that the taxes were rigorously col- 
lected 1))' attachment of the property or persons of those who refused to 
pay ; — that Ensign Jonathan Coe (grand-fixther of Jehial and Samuel 
W. Coe), had his cow attached and sold for a minister's rate; — that 
there was a surplus of money left of the sale, beyond the tax and costs, 
which the constable, Deacon Piatt, offered to pay him back, but which he 
indignantly refused to receive ; — telling the constable to " put it under Mr. 
Knapp's pillow and let him sleep on it if he could." The same tradition tells 
of the attachment of Joseph Hoskin's great coat in the fall and its retention 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. I43 

until spring ; — and also of the carrying of the late venerable Jonathan 
Coe to Litchfield Jail, — and how he finally paid the tax under protest. 

These occurrences, and others of a similar nature, prepared the way 
for the introduction and growth of Methodism ; and in connection with 
a subsequent division in the Winsted Society, hereafter detailed, led to 
the establishment and growth of the large and stable Methodist Church in 
Winsted; — of which the Coe family have ever been among the most 
useful and valued members. 

The financiers of the present day would be troubled to comprehend the 
" Specie " currency referred to in the lax votes of ibis and subsequent 
years. Hard money was literally too hard in those days, as well as these, 
to be obtainable as a circulating medium. Continental Rills had so de- 
preciated that, it took forty dollars to pay a year's sweeping of the meet- 
ing house, which had been done six years before for five shillings and six- 
pence. The term specie then had a well received meaning not given in 
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. It comprehended in its meaning, 
wheat, rye, corn, rueslin, beans, beef, pork, mutton, tallow, suet, lard, and 
all other farm products ; — and these were the tithes for the most part 
brought into the minister's storehouse in payment of his salary. They 
were also the kind of specie largely gathered by Washington's " Brother 
Jonathan," 1 * from all parts of the. State in aid of the revolutionary war. 
They were received and appraised by committees appointed for that pur- 
pose, and forwarded to general depots, in lieu of money taxes. 

The standard of specie value adopted in the vote of this year was a 
wise and equitable one. By taking wheat at the price ruling in 1774, 
and regulating other articles at proportionate values, the difficulty of de- 
termining what amount of a depreciated and fluctuating currency would 
be equal to the salary originally voted Mr. Knapp, was obviated in an 
equitable manner. 

On the 1 9th of September of this year, for the first time, freemen were 
admitted, preparatory to an election of the first Representative sent by 
the town to the General Assembly, as appears by the following record: 

"This certifies that Eliphaz Alvord, Adam Mott, Capt. John Hills, Lt. 
Ozias Brownson, Samuel McCune, Seth Griswold, Lent Mott, David 
Austin, Ens". Josiah Everitt, David Crissey, Phinehas Potter, John 
Miner, Ebenezer Preston, Robert Coe, Roswell Coe, Samuel Preston, 
Reuben Tucker, Dea. Seth Hills, Ens 1 . Elisha Wilcoxson, Robert Mc- 
Cune, Andrew Everitt, Martin North, Dea. Samuel Wetmore, David 
Alvord, Thomas Spencer and Abel Wetmore, are persons of quiet and 



* Gov. Jonathan Trumbull — Washington's sheet-anchor, 



144 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

peaceable behaviour and civil Conversation, and qualified to take the 
Freeman's oath, and had said oath administered to them September 19th, 
A. D. 1780. 

Seth Hills, ) 

Robert McCune, > Select Men." 

Elisiia Wilcoxson, ) 

The new comers of the year were Stephen Spencer, Simeon Hurlbut, 
John Church, Thomas Cannon, Stephen Schovil, Benjamin Woodruff, 
William Barnstable, and Prince Negro. 

Stephen Spencer, — a relative, probably a cousin of Thomas, — is 
supposed to have come from Saybrook. He owned and lived on the 
farm recently owned by William F. Hatch, on the east side of the Lit- 
tle Pond, in a house on a road now discontinued, which turned out of the 
Winchester road, nearly opposite the Stabell House, and extended north- 
westerly to the Little Pond road. This house, the two barns and cider 
mill around it, have now disappeared, together with all the cherry, 
damson and peach trees which once profusely abounded. A few antiquated 
apple trees alone indicate the location. 

Mr. Spencer also owned lands extending down to Mad River, along the 
north side of the pond stream, and built a saw-mill on the site of Lathrop 
and Barton's Cutlery Works. In 1800 he sold his farm to Jenkins and 
Boyd, and removed to Westmoreland, Oneida County,. New York. lie 
married, January 18, 177G, Elizabeth Turner. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, b. Nov. 30, 1777. 

II. Lovisa, b. Dec. 29, 1779; m. Nov. 28, 1795, Zacheus Munsill. 

HI. Submit, b. Nov. 15,1781. 

IV. Sarah, b. Sept. 1, 1783. 

V. Ai (son), b. April 25, 1786. 

VI. Temperance, b. '• 20, 1789. 

VII. Hannah, b. Oct. 10, 1795. 

Simeon Hurlbut, " of Wethersfield," was owner of lands in Winches- 
ter as early as 1 776, and is named of Winchester in 1 780, when he sold his 
home lot on which he then lived, lying south of the south end of Long 
Lake, and bordering on Torrington line. He probably then removed to 
Torrington. His wife's name was Mary, by whom he had a daughter, 
Olle, born in Winchester, August 4, 1780. 

John Ciidrch, from Chatham, was a raw-boned, griin-visaged man, 
who served under Arnold at Quebec and Saratoga. The precise time 
of his coming to Winchester is not ascertainable. His first deed is dated 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. - 145 

July 7, 1780. He built and lived and died in the ancient red lej o 
house on the Little Pond road, recently occupied by Sylvester II u it. 
He was, during his early residence, a zealous religionist of ^ome hardshell 
order, and preached on his own hook, from house to house. He married, 
March 29, 1780, Deborah Spencer. He died December 6, 1834, aged 
79. She died December 5, 1834, aged 75. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hannah, 2 b. July 25, 1781; m. Ansel Shattuck; she d. April 10, 
1847. 

II. Eunice, 2 b. July 18, 1783 ; m. Jan. 7, 1808, John Storer. 

III. Jonathan, 2 b. Sept. 17, 1785. 

IV. David, 2 b. June 1, 1788; moved to Beaver Dam, Erie Co., Penn. 
V.Isaac, 2 b. Sept. 11, 1790 ; " " " " " " " 

VI. Uri, 2 b. Aug. 4, 1792. 

VII. LrrcT, 2 b. Sept. 5, 1794. 

VIII. Wealthy, 2 b. Jan. 20, 1796. 

IX. Wealthy, 2 b. Jan. 14, 1799 ; m. Dec. 1, 1834, Rensellaer Sheldon. 

X. Simeon, 2 b. March 5, 1801. 

Jonathan Church 2 was a blacksmith, and lived in a house now torn 
down on the east side of Green Woods turnpike, nearly opposite the Mad 
River bridge leading to the Little Fond road. He died in this town. 
He married Lucy , and had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Timothy Chakles, 3 b. Oct. 25, 1809. 
II. Amos Charles, 3 b. July 3, 1812. 

III. Mary, 3 b. " 2, 1814. 

IV. Wealthy, 3 b. Oct. 25, 1816. 
V. Sarah, 3 b. July 7, 1818. 

VI. Lucy, 3 b. Nov. 15, 1820 ; d. Aug. 30, 1831. 

VII. Jonathan Seth, 8 b. Oct. 12, 1822; was graduated at the Wesleyan 
University in Middletown, Conn., and died while engaged in teaching in 
one of the Western States. 

Uri Church 2 lived in the red house next north of his father's, on the 
Little Pond road, where he died August 12, 1856, aged 64, leaving a 
wife, who died in 1861 ; and a daughter, Amanda, their only child, who 
still lives on her father's homestead. He was a well educated, industrious 
and worthy man. 

Thomas Cannon, and Mary, his wife, are named on the records of this 
year as residents of the town, and addicted to hard swearing, breaking the 
peace and other explosions. They seem to have lived not far from the 
old society burying-ground. No trace of them is found after 1781. 
19 



146 ' ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Op Stephen Schovil, nothing is ascertained, save that he was this 
year appointed " Key-keeper " of the Pound, and had been a soldier in the 
Continental service, hired by the town as one of its quota ; — as appears 
by a certificate of the Select Men on file in the Comptroller's office. In 
1784 he is named of Torrington, as defendant in a suit before Justice Al- 
vord. He married Elizabeth , and had a daughter, Lucy, born 

August 19, 1781. 

There was also a Stephen Schofield, Jr., of Winchester, in 1781, 
as appears by Justice Alvord's records, who " personally appeared and 
confessed himself guilty of a breach of the Sabbath, by striking Martin 
Hurlbut on the ham, and laughing and playing in an undecent and unlaw- 
ful manner, on y" Sabbath, or Lord's Day, being y e 25th day of March, 
1781, in y' Meeting House, in sd. Winchester, in y° time of publick 
worship," whereupon he was fined 3 shillings and cost four shillings, State 
money. 

Benjamin Woodruff was colleague " Key-keeper " of the Pound 
with Mr. Schovil, and lived near the first meeting house. 

William Barnstable leaves no record except the birth of Pede his 
daughter, by his wife Hannah, March 4, 1780. 

Prince, a negro, who seems to have had no surname, died in the town 
this year, leaving several State Notes received for military service in the 
Continental army, on which administration was granted to Robert Mc- 
Ewen by the Norfolk Probate Court. 

1781. 

The records of the town in these years afford many striking analogies 
to the war of 1861. The patriotic ardor of the earlier years of the revo- 
lution had become chilled by the protracted struggle and sad reverses of 
the war. The continually succeeding drafts of militia-men for short terms 
of service, rendered it nearly impossible for the towns to raise their allotted 
quotas of men for the Continental army. Substitute brokerage was a re- 
finement of baseness then unsystematized. The people were too poor to 
furnish means for hiring middle-men, to buy up on speculation New York 
roughs and Canadian Frenchmen, to do the fighting for able-bodied, well- 
dressed, stay-at-home patriots. 

The following votes of town meetings in 1781, would not seem strange 
if found in the records of ihe third year of the slave-owners' rebellion : 

Voted, to appoint Capt. Benj. Benedict and Dea. Seth Hills, to hire the 
two men now required. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. ■ 147 

Voted, to give forty shillings State money to Aaron and Joseph Agard 
for securing Joseph Preston for the town. 

Voted, Dea. Seth Hills, Eliphaz Alvord and Lt. Josiah Smith, a Com- 
mittee to procure clothing for the Soldiers, according to act of Assembly. 

Voted, to make out our quota of Continental Soldiers as soon as the 
number we are deficient can be known. 

Voted, Capt. Benedict, Capt. Corbin and Capt. Wright be a Com- 
mittee to procure Soldiers to fill our deficiency in the Continental army. 

Voted, Lieut. Brownson to represent the town before the Committee 
appointed by the Assembly to adjust matters respecting Soldiers. 

Voted, Lt. Brownson go to Hartford to get Dolphin's son* to count for 
Winchester. 

Voted, Capt. Corbin to make application to Gen'l Parsons, or some 
other General Officer, to procure a pardon for Jonathan Preston on ac- 
count of his deserting the array. 

Voted, to raise a man to supply the place of George Hudson in the Con- 
tinental Army. 

Voted, Lt. Josiah Smith and Ens n . Jesse Doolittle be a Committee to 
hire a man for the State Guard. 

Voted, to raise Sixpence, hard money, on the Pound to hire the soldiers 
now called for, and to pay the Soldiers already procured. 

Voted, that Neat Cattle, or Sheep, or Pork or English Grain, or Indian 
Corn, shall be accepted in lieu of hard money granted in the last vote, — 
said articles to be delivered in Winchester, at the house of Eliphaz Al- 
vord at the appraisement of a committee to be appointed for that purpose. 

Voted, to raise fourpence on the Pound, to purchase Beef for the use 
of the Army, agreeable to the act of Assembly in May last, with an 
abatement of said rate according to the bill of form by which Winchester 
is taxed. 

Voted, Robert McCune, Sam'l Hurlbut and Jesse Doolittle a Commit- 
tee to procure Barrels, receive and salt, pack and secure the Beef and 
Pork that shall be brought in and necessary to be salted, and to store 
other articles delivered in payment of State Taxes. 

Voted, Dea. Wetmore to receive the Cattle and Sheep into his pasture, 
that may be delivered in payment of aforesaid Taxes. 

The following freemen were admitted and sworn, April 9th of this 
year : Rev. Mr. Knapp, Capt. Benj. Benedict, Capt. Abraham Andrews, 

* This " Dolphin's son " was one of the small number of colored men, then resident 
in the town. Two of his grand-sons recently went from here to Rhode Island, and 
enlisted into one of the colored regiments there; — there being ;it the time no organi- 
zation for colored volunteers in this State. One of them, James Dolphin, died in the 
service at Plaquemine, La., August 5, 1864; the other, Edward H. Dolphin, returned. 



148 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

John Beach, Jonathan Coe, Eleazer Smith, Gershom McCune, Jr., 
Phineas Qriswold, Aaron Cook, Timothy Benedict, Jr., Abram Filley, 
Nathan Blackman, John Walter, Joel Beach and Samuel Hurlbut. 

The town was for the first time represented this year in the General 
Assembly, by Deacon Seth Hills and Robert McEwen. 

In Society .meeting December 4, 1781, Mr. Knapp's salary was voted 
"to be paid in Specie as things went in 1774, or Cash equivalent," and 
exempting such persons from payment thereof as could not in conscience 
support Mr. Knapp. 

It was also voted, that the women singers sit in the cross fore-seats, 
and the men singers as usual. 

The new comers of this year were Elijah Andrews, and his son, Elijah, 
Jr., James Adkins, Isaac Adkins, Richard Coit, Aaron and Joseph 
Agard. 

Elijah Andrews, with his son Elijah, Jr., came from Windsor, and 
lived on the east side of the Colebrook road, on land now a part of the 
farm of William E. Cowles. He was fined by Esq. Alvord, in 1784, 
twenty shillings for traveling on the Sabbath — and not long afterward 
removed to Colebrook. Had wife Mary. 

Elijah Andrews, Jr., lived from 1810 to about 1815, in the late 
homestead of James Crocker, on the Green Woods turnpike. 

James Adkins came from Middletown, and bought the homestead of 
Capt. John Hills, on the Old Country road, near the Hurlbut Cemetery. 
He is described by a contemporary as "an old man with broad coat 
skirts, and beaver, old and smooth." — " He brought with him a famous cali- 
co Narraganset pacing mare, which he said he once rode on a single day, 
between sun-rising and sun-setting, one hundred miles from Middletown 
up the Connecticut River valley." Being asked if he stopped to bait his 
horse, — " No," said he, " I had my coat pockets full of ears of corn, — 
and going up hills, I now and then reached round and gave her a nubbin." 

One of his daughters married David Austin, Jr., and another Daniel 
Hurlbut Cone. 

Isaac Adkins, probably a son of James, owned lands, and lived in a 
house on the east side of Blue Street, until 1788, when he sold out to 
Hewitt Hills, — after which his name disappears from the records : 

Richard Coit, a shoemaker, came from New London, and lived two- 
thirds of a mil e northwest of the center, on the Old Country road, in the 
house recently owned by Nelson T. Loomis. He served in the unsuccess- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 149 

ful siege of Quebec, and subsequently on the quota of tMs town in the 
Continental army. In the words of a contemporary, — " he was impulsive 
and fractious, — talked a volume everyday, — disciplined his children 
and hogs severely, was not dainty about his words, — was poor, until in 
old age, his brother bequeathed him forty thousand dollars, which was 
nearly squandered before his death." He was born in New London, 
December 25, 1752 ; married, August 27, 1778, Hepzibab Smith, born in 
Middletown, August 9, 1750; she died March 15, 1828, aged 77; he 
died March 25, 1834, aged 81. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Joseph, b. Aug. 29, 1780; m. Nov. 13, 1807, Francis Ursula Adams, and 

had children : 1. Lucy, b. Jan. 5, 1809 ; 2. Joseph Richard, b. March 28, 
1811. In 1807 he was " of Trumbull Co., Ohio." In 1809 and 10, he 
owned and occupied the Luman Munsill house, a little south of the cen- 
ter; and soon after removed to Monticello, N. Y., where he died. 

II. Sarah, b. May 16, 1785; in. Feb. 13, 1815, William S. Marsh; d. s. p. 

March 10, 1833. 
III. Lucy, b. Dec. 2, 1790 ; d. June 7, 1794. 

Aaron and Joseph Agard are named in the record of a town 
meeting this year. They, or one of them, lived in the Noble J. Everitt 
house, half a mile south of the center. They came into the town prob- 
ably earlier than 1776, but were not land owners. Elizabeth, probably 
wife of Aaron, was one of the original members of the Church. 

Joseph and Tabitha Agard, his wife, had 

CHILDREN. 
I. Joseph, b. May 11, 1776. II. Tabitha, b. May 17, 1779. 

Benajah Abrew, or Abro, is mentioned in a vote of this year as a 
Continental soldier, claimed as serving on the quota of Winchester. His 
name is on the list of 1785 as a resident tax-payer. By another vote in 
1788 the tax was given up as uncollectable. 

1782. 

In Town Meeting February 26, 1782, it was voted " to hire the men 
now called for, for the Guard at Horse Neck, and to fill the deficiencies 
in the Continental Army 'til December next." Also " j.0 raise fourpence 
on the pound in money or specie at money prices, in the specific articles 
of neat cattle, sheep, wool, flax, wheat, rie, and indian Corn, at the price 
the said articles were valued at in 1774 ; and that the above rate be appro- 
priated to the sole purpose of procuring the soldiers, if needed, that are 
or may be called for by the Assembly." 



150 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

November 7, 1782, voted to build a bridge over Mad River in the 
most convenient place in, or near, the road now leading to the Society of 

Winsted, and Lt. Uriah Seymour, Col. Seth Smith and Samuel 

Mills were appointed as an indifferent committee from other towns, to 
view and report which place is the best on the whole, for the public and 
private interest, for a road to, and a bridge over, Mad River ; — whether 
the road now established and traveled to and over said river, or a new 
proposed place east of Mr. Austin's mill. 

The traveled road here referred to probably crossed the river, either 
near Rockwell's tannery or on the site of Dudley's Block; — and the 
proposed route was Lake street as it now runs. 

The freemen admitted this year were Reuben Miner, William Barbour, 
Jonah Woodruff, and Jonathan Alvord. 

The new comers were Daniel H. Cone, John Deer, Jonathan Deer, 
John Marshall, Levi Norton, Samuel Roberts, Chauncy Smith, Elijah 
Thompson, and David Ward. 

Daniel Hdrlbut Cone, from Middletown, first lived on a part of 
the John Hills farm, near the burying-ground, and afterward on a new 
farm near the Leonard Hurlbut place, where he died May 17, 1842, 
aged 88. His wife, P^lizabeth, died February 27, 1829, aged 74.' He 
was by trade a shoemaker ; — had served nearly the whole war, as an ar- 
tilleriest in the Continental army ; — was a good man in every sense of 
the word. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Susanna, 2 b. June 22, 1781. 

II. Daniel, 2 b. Oct. 14, 1782. 

III. Elizabeth, 2 b. Jan. 29, 1784. 

IV. Samuel, 2 b. Oct. 18, 1785; lived and died in Norfolk. 
V. Hurlbut, 2 h. Jan. 5, 1788. 

VI. Warren, 2 b. Aug. 19, 1789; lived and died in Norfolk. 

VII. Sullivan, 2 b. Jan. 14, 1793. 

VIII. Silas, 2 b. " 27, 1795; lived and died in Granby. 

Two twin sons of Samuel, 2 James and John, and a daughter of Silas, 

are now residents of Winsted. 

John Deer, from Goshen, this year bought a tract of land, now com- 
posing mainly the farms of Orren Tuller and Dudley Chase. He lived 
on the discontinued part of the Blue Street road which extended north of 
the road passing the houses of Tuller and Chase, until his death. He 
married, November 22, 1780, Hannah Stow; she died February 28, 
1786 ; he married (2d), May 6, 1787, Rhoda Filley ; she died April 8, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 151 

1793 ; and he married (3d), Lucy Foresbey, or Frisbey. He was a 
soldier of the revolution. He died August 30, 1828, aged 73 years. His 
father, John or George Deer, was also a soldier in the revolution, and 
was killed by a cannon shot, while on a boat on Lake Champlain. His 
mother, Abigail Deer, died Octofter 5, 1792. 

CHILDREN OF JOHN AND HANNAH (STOW) DEER. 

I. Ruth, b. Jan. 28, 1781. 

II. Hannah, b. Aug. 30, 1782; d. same day. 

III. Lauranna, b. July 19, 1784. 

IV. Abigail, b. Feb. 5, 1786 ; d. same day. 

CHILDREN OF JOHN AND RHODA (FILLEY) DEER. 

V. Hannah, b. April 15, 1788. 

VI. Abigail, b. Aug. 11, 1789. 

VII. Roger, b. Oct. 3, 1791. 

VIII. Aman, b. Feb. 3, 1793. 

Jonathan Deer, supposed to be brother to John, bought of him the 
south part of his lot, and first lived in a log house on Hall Meadow 
Road, near its junction with the Tuller and Chase road ; and in 1796, 
lived a little west of the center on the Old Country road, near the school 
house. In 1797 he is described as "absconded to parts unknown," in 
Esq. Alvord's Justice Records. He married, January 26, 1785, Mary 
Reed ; they had one 

CHILD. 
I. Jonathan Wheeler, b. Aug. 14, 1786. 

John Marshall, from Torrington, owned lands between the Norfolk 
and Brooks roads, and is supposed to have lived on or near the latter 
road, above Nelson T. Loomis. He probably died in the town before 
1800 ; — as his widow married Andrew Everitt in December of that year. 
He married, March 31, 1780, Statira Hills, daughter of Deacon Seth. 

CHILD. 
I. Oliver, b. Aug. 3, 1780. (Removed to Vernon, N. Y.) 

Levi Norton, youngest child of Samuel and Mabel Norton, of 
Goshen, Connecticut, was born May 13, 1759. At sixteen he entered the 
Continental army under Putnam, and served until late in the fall of 1779, 
a period of nearly five years. In 1780 he made a rude cabin under a 
chestnut tree between the two lake-, and began clearing the land of his 
future farm, and studying Dilworth's arithmetic by the blaze of his cabin 
fire. In 1782 he built his first dwelling, a few feet north of the red one 
and a half story house, which he erected in 1795, and thence occupied 



152 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

until 1812. In this first dwelling, he introduced his newly married wife 
on the 23d of January, 1783 ; — and here labored day and night in clear- 
ing and cultivating one of the largest and best farms of the town. 

In May 1812 he removed to the wilderness of Wayne County, Penn- 
sylvania, where he foreclosed 5,000 acres of land and gathered an un- 
mixed Yankee settlement around him. He died January 21, 1823, aged 
64 years. 

He was a prominent, intelligent, and influential man of the town, and a 
zealous Jeffersonian. 

He married, January 21, 1783, Olive Wheeler, born in Bethlem, 
Connecticut, September 19, 1759; she died May 25, 1838. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Warren Wheeler, b. Nov. 12, 1783; m. Oct. 26, 1800, Polly, daughter 
of Martin and Mary North, of Winchester. Children : Hiram, Sid- 
ney M. 
II. Alva W., b. Aug. 10, 1791 ; [living in 1872], m. Nov. 21, 1816, Sallie Free- 
man, of Chester, Mass. Children : Emily A., Olive A., Maria S., Har- 
riet C, and Lucius F. 

III. Sheldon, b. Nov. 26, 1793; m. Sept. 14, 1818, Harriet, daughter of Grin- 

nell Spencer, of Winchester, Ct. ; he d. Sept. 15, 183S. Children: 1. 
Edmund Kirby; 2. Oscar Montgomery; 3. Abigail Catlin ; 4. Mary 
Elizabeth ; of whom Edmund K. and Abigail C. were living in Wayne 
Co., Pa., in 1872. He was an early clerk of Wayne Co., and afterwards 
during his life an Agent of the American Sunday-School Union in Mis- 
souri, Iowa, and Wisconsin. 

IV. Clarissa, b. March 28, 1796; m. in 1821, Hon. Isaac Dirnick, of Ottawa, 

111., in 1872. Children: 1. Levi Norton; 2. Pbilo J.; 3. Ann; 4. 
Olive. 
V. Samuel, b. June 11, 1799; m. in 1822, Jerusha Tracy. Children: 1. Levi; 
2. Philander; 3. Phebe; 4. Luther; 5. Tracy; 6. Washington. 

Samukl Roberts, probably from Torrington, bought of the executor 
of Joel Roberts, deceased, the farm of said Joel, and lived in the house 
above mentioned as the subsequent residence of Warreu W. Norton, until 
1802. His name appears as plaintiff or defendant in Justice Alvord's 
Records more than fifty times during the years 1796 and 1797, from 
which it is inferred that he was not of the most amiable disposition. We 
extract a single record in 1799 as a sample of many others. 

Stephen Carter, one of the grand jurors of Winchester, complained 
"that Samuel Roberts, of said town, did, at Winchester aforesaid, on the 
17th day of September last past, in an angry manner, sinfully and wickedly 
curse or damn the person of Preserved Crissy of said Winchester," where- 
upon he was found guilty and fined one dollar with costs, amounting to 
two dollars and fifty-nine cents. He married, December 1 1 th, 17^3, Mary 
Brooks. He sold out to Martin North in 1802, and thereafter disappears 
from the records. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 153 

CHILDREN. 

I. Naomi, b. May 20, 1785. 

II. Sylvester, b. March 30, 1787; d. May 20, 1787. 

III. Warren, b. June 27, 1788. 

IV. Minerva, b. October 14, 1790. 

Chauncey Smith owned and lived on lot 36, 3d division, on the 
Brooks road, in a house, on the west side, about 100 rods north of the 
Everitt House. The inventory of his estate was returned to the Norfolk 
Probate Court November 18, 1794. He married, April 9th, 1783, Sarah 
Page. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Ltjcinda, b. October 23, 1784. 
II. Abel, b. December 19, 1785. 

III. Orilla, b. October 3d, 1786. 

IV. Sarah, b. January 21, 1790. 

Elijah Thompson owned and lived on lot 19, 3d division, in the 
neighborhood of Newman B. Gilbert, Danbury Quarter. He conveyed 
to his sons Daniel and Elijah two portions of the same lot, on which they 
are supposed to have lived. 

Daniel Thompson married, November 2, 1788, Roxy Smith. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Huldah, b. November 15, 1790. 
II. Roxalana, b. September 20, 1791. 

Samuel Thompson married, March 3, 1788, Hannah Wolcott. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Samuel, b. May 17, 1790. 

II. Hannah, b. February 5, 1792. 

III. David Wolcott, b. February 13, 1794. 

David Ward came to this town as a schoolmaster, and this year 
bought lands on Blue street ; and the next year bought a part of the John 
Hills farm, near the burying ground. He married, January 1, 1784, 
Mary, daughter of David Austin, senior, and soon after became the owner 
of the farm in Winsted, lately owned by Colonel Hosea Hinsdale, which 
he sold in 1796, and probably removed with his father-in-law to Vermont. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Mart, b. Friday, January 28, 1785. 
II. Lucy, b. November 14, 1786. 

III. Samuel, b. March 27, 1790. 

IV. Daniel, b. May 8, 1792. 
V. Laura, b. May 7, 1794. 

VI. Austin, b. March 27, 1796. 
20 



X54 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

1783. 
In the record of a town meeting, September 26, 1783, we are reminded 
of modern war times by a vote condemning the " commutation " adopted 
by the convention at Middletown, as " unconstitutional, and altogether 
unjust and unreasonable." 

In society meeting, the project of a new meetingdiouse was ventilated, 
and an application to the county court for a committee, to set a stake 
therefor, was voted. The committee having been appointed, and having 
set a stake, another meeting was held, which rejected the site selected, 
and set another stake, in Sam'l Hurlbut's lot, north of Dr. Everitt's, and 
about eight rods west of the allowance, and near the middle of said lot 
north and south, and appointed Captain Brownson to go to the county 
court, to get the doings of the society established. These doings were up- 
set by the vote of a subsequent meeting, reconsidering the aforesaid doings. 

The freemen admitted this year were Captain Peter Corbin, Levi 
Brownson, David Ward. Ichabod Loomis, Stephen Spencer, Samuel 
Smith, William Fay, David Austin, Jr., John Church, Benoni Brownson, 
and Levi Norton. 

The new comers of the year were Benoni Brownson, William Cham- 
berlin and William Chamberlin, Jr., Jedediah Coe, Timothy Cook, Joseph 
Elmore and Joseph B. Elmore, his son, Isaac Filley, Benjamin Judd, 
Joseph Piatt, Samuel Smith aud Benajah Smith, his son, Ephraim Smith, 
Samuel Stancliff, Josiah Wade, Daniel Ward, Hopkins West, Nathaniel 
White. 

Major Benoni Brownson, from Berlin, distantly related to the 
other Brownsons in the town, lived in a house, now torn down, immedi- 
ately north of John J. McAlpine's late residence, until a few years before 
his death, when he removed to the Major Seth Wetmore house, then 
standing immediately south of the Hurlbut store, where he died December 
15th, 1833, aged 76. He is described as "a man of pleasant temperament, 
tolerably industrious, and a great talker." He married Mary Percival, of 
Berlin, and after her death he married (lid) Mrs. Lois Wetmore, daughter 
of Colonel Ozias Brownson, and the divorced wife of Major Seth Wetmore. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE, 

I. Chauncey, b. February 26, 1778. 

II. Orentus, b. December 3, 1779. 

III. Amelia, m. Elijah Blake, Jr. 

IV. Polly, m. Herman Munson. 
V. Parliament, 

VI. George, went South, d. unmarried. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 155 

Chauncey Brownson lived for some years in the original homestead 
of his father ; and after the breaking up of his family, in consequence of 
his partial derangement, he lived mainly in Winsted, until his death in 
1853. He married May 1, 1806, Fanny Thrall, born August 9, 1783. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Edwin Worthy, b. October 24, 1807; d. of yellow fever at New Or- 

leans, October, 1841, unmarried. 
II. Samuel John, b. April 17, 1809; d. at the South, unmarried. 

III. Hiram Charles, b. February 1, 1811 ; d. at Columbia, S. C.,May, 1863. 

IV. Parliament Hart, b. July 15, 181G ; d. at New Orleans, of yellow fever, 

October, 1841, unmarried. 
V. George Washington, b. May 10, 1S20; d. aged 7 years. 
VI. Mart Jane, b. April 2, 1826; m. lives in Missouri. 

Orentus Brownson migrated about 1800 to Burke, Vermont, whence 
he returned to Winchester, and at one time kept a tavern in the house of 
Washington Hatch, at the Centre. About 1 835, he built and moved into 
the house now owned by Samuel Smith, in Winsted, and followed the 
business of building through his remaining active life, during which he 
built, mainly by unassisted labor, nearly twenty dwellings. Though 
never educated as a mechanic, he did all (he carpenter and joiner work, 
and not unfrequently, the masonry and brick and stone laying; selling 
the house, when finished, to buy the lot and materials for buildiug another; 
changing his own residence from time to time, and closing his laborious 
and inoffensive life in the house now owned by Samuel A. McAlpine, 
August 19, 1859, aged 80. He married, October , 1804, Abiah, daugh- 
ter of Win. R. Case. She died June 20, 1836, aged 50. He married, 
May 15, 1848, widow Huldah Munson. He had one child, Huldah L., 
born January 29, 1818; died March 18, 1838. 

Hon. Parliament Brownson removed in early life to Auburn, N. Y., 
where he became a lawyer of some eminence, and a man of great upright- 
ness and independence of character. He married, about 1847, a Miss 
Wood, and died childless some years afterwards. 

William Chamberlin, from Colchester, settled on the farm late 
owned by James L. Bragg, and occupied it until his death, January 6, 
1821, at the age of 86. His wife Mary died December 26, 1820, aged 87. 

William Chamberlin, Jr., owned and occupied a farm immediately 
north of his father's, now owned by Harlow Fyler, until 1809, when he 
migrated to Hudson, Ohio, where his descendants now reside. He mar- 
ried May 4, 1780, Joanna Skinner. 



156 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 



I. Anna, b. June 13, 1782. 

II. Joseph, b. November 12, 1784. 

III. William, b. December 9th, 1786. 

IV. Mart, b. December 15, 1788. 
V. Ltdia, b. January 11, 1791. 

VI. Amos, b. July 24, 1793; d. at Hudson, Ohio, April 14, 1861. An obit- 

uary notice says, " He has contributed a large share towards the improvement 
of this township for the last fifty-two years. He was a man of the strictest 
honesty, and of unswerving integrity. He leaves a wife and eight children, 
besides a large circle of relatives and friends, to mourn his loss." 
VII. Asahel, b. August 13, 1795. 
VIII. Reuben, b. December 23, 1797. 
IX. Samuel, b. April 9, 1800. 
X. Lucy, b. March 17, 1802. 

XI. Philemon, b. January 31, 1804. 
XII. Hiram, b. December 27, 1807. 

Jedediah Coe is on the assessment list of this year. He owned land 
adjoining, or a part of, the Bragg farm, which he sold to John Nash in 
1809, and then migrated to Burke, Caledonia county, Vermont, where 
some of his descendants now reside. 

Timothy Cook, from Windsor, owned a lot and built a house on Wal- 
len's hill, where he resided some years, after which it became the property 
of his father-in-law, Simeon Moore, of Windsor. In 1792, he bought a 
sixty-acre lot on Colebrook line, west of Green Woods turnpike, on which 
he afterwards resided. His wife's name was Hannah. , 

Capt. Joseph Elmore, a blacksmith from Danbury, owned and occu- 
pied the place afterwards owned by Silliman Hubbell, and now by Norris 
Coe's widow, on the Norfolk road, a third of a mile west of Winchester 
Centre. His will was proved in Norfolk Probate District, December 26, 
1801. He had, by wife Lucy, a son, {Joseph Benedict, born in Danbury, 
November 16, 176gJ 

^Doctor Joseph B. Elmore, son of the foregoing, owned a house and 
lot previously owned by Dan'l Grover, on the discontinued north and south 
road, west of Orrin Tuller's, which he sold in 1799 to John Beecher, soon 
after which he removed to Granville, Massachusetts. 

Isaac Fillet, son of Abram and cousin of Remembrance, is on the 
list as a resident tax payer. Nothing further is known of him except the 
following town legislation, recorded on January 7, 1787: 

" Voted, that Isaac Filley shall mend and make good the gun he broke, 
belonging to James Hale, as good as when he received the gun." 

He married, December 9, 1782, Elizabeth Curtis, of Winchester. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 157 

Benjamin Judd's name is on the list of this year, but his residence 
and history are unknown. His marriage to Dinah Filley, April 24, 1783, 
is recorded in the Church Records, and he is there described as of Dan- 
bury. 

Joseph Platt, from Danbury, uncle to Deacon Levi Piatt, lived on a 
lot north of the Edward Rugg Farm. He was a clothier, and had a ful- 
ling mill on the brook, a little south of the Potter negro house. He sold 
out in 1787, and afterwards moved to Ohio. 

Samuel Smith owned and resided on land near Winchester Centre, 
and was assessed as a tavern keeper this year. It is not easy to locate 
his residence, or to ascertain how long he dwelt in the town. In 1795, 
he is described in a deed of land as of Litchfield. 

Benajah Smith, son of Samuel, is grantee in 1784, of the above- 
mentioned land of his father, which he conveyed in 1787, to Roswell Coe. 

Ephraim Smith, known as " Deaf Smith," is on the list of this year. 
In 1794, Chauncey Smith conveyed to him his homestead above the 
Everitt house, which he sold to Levi Brownson in 1796. He is described 
as of Kent in a Recognizance dated June 27, 1797. 

Josiah Wade, of Litchfield, bought, November 11, 1783, a wedge lot 
in the second tier, first division, bordering on Torrington line, on winch 
he afterward resided, and which he sold to Amasa Wade, April 23, 1786, 
when he probably left the town. 

Daniel Ward, from Middletown, owned a lot on Blue Street, on which 
he probably lived until 1789, when he bought and lived on land near the 
parting of the Norfolk road and the Brooks road. He had a rough tongue, 
which he kept in vigorous exercise, in wordy contests with his neighbor- 
in-law, Richard Coit, who was an able combatant in this species of war- 
fare. Squire Alvord's records show that he was somewhat addicted to 
profanity and breaches of the peace. 

Hopkins West, from Chatham, owned land near the Leonard Hurlbut 
place, and probably resided there until about 1785, when he is described, 
in his conveyance of the same land, as of New Cambridge district, Albany 
county, New York. 

Nathaniel White, from Chatham, owned land east of the little pond, 
now a part of the farm, late of Wm. F. Hatch. Where he lived, or when 
he left the town, is not ascertained. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR— RESUME. 

The close of the revolutionary war is a fitting period for summing up 
the growth of our infant settlement since its incorporation as a town in 
1771. 

The population at that period, as given in the petition of April 4, 1771, 
was, 

In the Society of Winchester, 28 families, embracing - - 179 souls. 

In the township and out of the Society, 4 " estimated at - - 26 " 

Total, 32 " 205 " 

The census of 1782, in the Comptroller's office, gives the population at 
that period as 683 whites and 5 blacks ; Total, 688. 

The oldest complete Assessment List of the town now to be found, is 
that of 1783, which has the names of 109 resident male tax-payers in 
Winchester Society, and thirty-nine in Winsted ; making the total of the 
town 148. 

We copy this assessment, as showing who were then the inhabitants of 
the town, — their relative condition as property owners, — the amount of 
improvements and accumulation of property. 

WINCHESTER SOCIETY. 

Amount of Amount of 

NAMES. Taxable Property. NAMES. Taxable Property. 

£. s. d. £. s. d. 

Daniel Andrus, 50: 5: Wm. Benedict, 26: 5: 6 

Abram Andrus, 31: 8 : 6 Benoni Brownson, 39 : 2 : 6 

David Alvord, 33 : 1 1 : 6 Peter Blackman, 40 : 3 : 

Thcophilus Andrus, 15: 0: Joseph Bown, 21: 0: 

Abram Andrus, Jr., 26 : 5 : 6 Lemuel Basset, 6: 2: 6 

Eliphaz Alvord, 68: 0: Capt. Benedict, 81: 8: 6 

Isaac Adkins 49:11: Timothy Benedict, Jr., 48: 1: 6 

Jonathan Blackman, 38:13: 9 Joel Beach, 44 : : 

Levi Brownson, 59:15: 9 Elijah Castle, 22 : 8 : 

Timothy Benedict, 49: 7: 6 Aaron Cook, 51: 7: 6 

Capt. (Ozias) Brownson, 98: 4: Richard Coit, 3: 8: 3 



FAMILY RECORDS. 



159 



NAMES. 

£. 

Abner Coe, 30 

Capt. (Peter) Corbin," 56 

Joliu Church 35 

Peter Corbin, Jr., 21 

Jedediah Coe, 21 

Jonathan Coe, 70 

Saiu'l Clark 30 

Robert Coe, 52 

Sam'l Castle 21 

Daniel Cone & David Ward, 78 

Win. Charaberlin, 25 

Rozel Coe, it 1 

Win. Castle, 32 

Timothy Cook, 22 

Daniel Clark,..' 29 

Joseph Dodge, 33 

John Dear & Salmon Hoskin, 50 

Eli Dolphin, 37 

Andrew Everit, 36 

Hannah Everit, 14 

Joseph Elmer, 42 

Josfah Everit, 30 

Win. Fay, 24 

Rem'b. Filley, 1 

Isaae Filley, 27 

Abni. Filley, 79 

Joseph Frisbie, 51 

Daniel G rover, 23 

Phineas Griswold, 47 

Seth Griswold, 51 

Joseph Roskins, 39 

Stephen Hurlbut, 20 

Elijah Hubard, 23 

Samuel Hurlbut, 93 

Seth Hills, 83 

Widow Mary Hills, 5 

James Hale, 29 

Benjamin Judd, 17 

Seth Kellogg 38 

Ichabod Loomis,. 66 

D.iniel Loomis, 34 

Widow Leach, 2 

William Leach, 12 

John Marshall 26 



Amount of 
Taxable Property. 

d. 





6 









9 



3 

6 

6 



6 

1 

6 







i) 





6 

6 



6 



6 





6 



6 

6 



3 

6 





6 

6 

6 



9 



3: 

16 : 

1 : 

0: 

0: 

15: 

14 : 

9: 

0: 

15. 



16: 

1 : 

4: 

5: 

14: 

19: 
1 : 
0: 
11): 
10: 

18 : 

: 

1 : 

2 : 

19 : 
2 : 
: 
7 : 

15: 
15 : 
17 : 

6 : 

7 : 
11 : 

2 : 
2 : 

13 : 
: 
9 : 

15 : 



Amount of 
NAMES. Taxable Property. 

£. S. d. 

Lent Mott, 32 : 2 : 6 

Gershom McCune, Jr., 56: 1: 

Adam Mott, 22: 6: 6 

John Minor, 43 : 18 : 3 

Samuel McCune, 62 : 2 : 6 

Gershom McCune, 49 : 13 : 6 

Robert McCune, 94 : 1 9 : 6 

Reuben Minor, 34: 0: 6 

Martin North, Jr., 23:17: 6 

Martin North, 49 : lo : 6. 

Levi Norton, 40 : 8 : 6 

Joseph Piatt, 37 : 6 : 6 

Benjamin i'reston, 4:16: 

Ambrose Palmer, : 51 : : 

Samuel Preston, 59 : 1 : 

Ebenzer Preston, 34: 2: 

Moses Roberts, 21: : 

Samuel Roberts, 33 : 2 : 

Ephraim Smith, 22: 0: 

Ephraim Smith (deaf), 19 : 13 : 

Samuel Stanclift, 0:12: 

Eleazer Smith, 32 : 1 9 : 6 

Lemuel Stannard; 27: 3: 6 

Abel Stannard, 28: 2: 

Chauneey Smith, 25:13: 6 

Samuel Smith, 14:15: 3 

Stephen Spencer, 37: 8: 3 

Thomas Spencer, 69 : 13 : 

William Stannard 20 : 10 : 6 

Reuben Tucker, 45 : 18 : 

Elijah Thomson, 42 : 4 : 6 

John Videto, 28:16: 6 

Jonah Woodruff, 36:17: 6 

Nathan White, 38 : : 6 

Daniel Wither, 23 : : 

Christopher Whiting, 48 : : 9 

Samuel Wetmore, 61 : : 9 

Elisha Wilcoxson, 74: 7: 9 

Abel Wetmore, 47 : : 

AmacyWade 60:17: 9 

Lewis Wilkinson, 23: 7: 3 

Jesse Wilkinson, 27:18: 3 

Levi Wilkinson, 24:12: 

Hopkins West, 46: 0: 



Total Winchester Society, £4242 14s. lOd. 



160 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



WINSTED SOCIETY. 



NAMES. 



Amount of 
Taxable Property. 



NAMES. 



Amount of 
Taxable Property. 



£. S. d. 

David Austin, Jr., 35:18: 6 

David Austin, 45 : 13 : 3 

Elijah Andrews, 55 : 5 : 6 

Nathan Balcam, 27 : : 

Jonathan Balcam, 28 : : 

John Balcam, 43 : 4 : 9 

Samuel Clark 2d, 21 : 13 : 

Uzal Clark, 28 : 16 : 

David Crisse, 73:18: 

Silas Dunham, 25 > : 

Jesse Doolittle, 54 : 14 : 

Ahijah Fuller, 21:19: 9 

Comfort Gofr', 19: 8: 

Samuel Hayden, 46 : 4 : 3 

Abel Hoskin, 55 : 16 : 

Stephen Knowlton, 28:19: 9 

David Mills, 76: 6: 

Phinehas Potter, 30 : 1 4 : 

Lazarus Palmer 21: 0: 

Reuben Palmer, 21: 0: 



£. 



Eleazer Porter, 36:15: 

Enoch Palmer, 59 : 5 : 

Benjamin Palmer, 23 : 14 : 

Samuel Stanclift, 18 : : 

Elisha Spencer, 23 : 10 : 

John Sweet, 23 : 18 : 

Josiah Smith, 84 : 14 : 

Comfort Stanclif, 24 : : 

Simeon Rogers, 32 : 4 : 

Ebenezer Rowlee, 46 : 10 : 

Zebulon Thomson, 4 : 2 : 

Henry Walter, 37 

Freedom Wright, 42 

John Wright, 21 : 6 : 

Charles Wright, 34 : 13 : 

John Wright, Jr., 45 : 9 : 

John Walter, 31 : 1 : 

Lemuel Walter, 28 : 6 : 

David West, 47 : 2: 



17 : 
13 : 





at £2 


:() 


:0. 




at £1 


:0 


:0. 


6. 








'.» 









I). 



Total, Winsted Society, £1425 12s. 9d. 

This list was made up of the following items : 

134 Polls from 21 to 70 years, at £18 : : 0. 

40 do. " 16 to 21 " at £9: 0:0. 

122 Oxen, 4 years old or upwards, at £4:0: 0. 

271 Cows and Steers, 3 years old or upwards, at £3 : : 0. 

100 Steers and Heifers, 2 years old or upwards, at £2:0: 0. 

77 " " " 1 " '* " at £1:0: 0. 

120 Horses, 3 years old and upwards, at £3 : : 0. 

9 " 2 " " " 

7 " 1 " 

154 Swine, at £1:0:0. 

28 Smokes or fire place, at £0 : 7 

92 do. " do. at £0 : 3 

586 Acres of Plow Lands, at £0 : 10 : 0. 

1027 " " Meadow Lands, at £0 : 8 : 0. 

51 " " Bog Meadow Lands, at £0 : 5 
409 " " Bush Pasture Lands, at £0 : 2 : 

12219 " " Timber Land, at £0 : : 6. 

3 Silver Watches, at £3:0:0. 

5 Taverners assessed at £15 : : 0. 

1 Store, at £25 : : 0. 

1 Grist-Mill and Saw-Mill, at £24 : 5 :0. 

1 Saw-Mill, at £8: 15:0. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 161 

2 do. at £4 : : 0. 

1 Physician, at £10:0 :0. 

2 Shoemakers, at £5 : : 0. 

The number of dwellings is not specified on the list ; the tax being 
levied on the " smokes " or fire-places. From an examination of the list, 
the number of dwellings may be estimated at from seventy to seventy- 
five ; and their quality is indicated by the low assessment of the smokes, 
which are rated at 7s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. each, while the rate for smokes in 
houses in good repair is 15s. each. 

The cleared lands of all kinds, — bush pasture included, — amounted to 
1015 acres; being about one-twentieth of the territory, and less than 
eisrht and a half acres to each resident land-owner. 

The quantity of land put in the list falls short of the whole territory 
of the town by more than six thousand acres. It is difficult to account 
for so large an omission, except on the ground that lands " on mountains, 
inaccessible to teams," were not considered as taxable, even at the rate 
of sixpence per acre. 

We have quoted largely from year to year, the votes passed and the 
measures adopted to recruit the army, and aid the government with 
supplies for carrying on the war, as showing how much the success of 
that struggle depended on the legislation of the New England towns, 
and how zealously it was sustained by the efforts of our infant 
settlement. 

It is often said that the settlement of this and other neighboring towns 
was greatly accelerated by immigration of men of more prudence than 
courage or patriotism, who hop- d in this remote l'egion to escape from 
compulsory military service. If this is true, they found it a poor refuge 
for non-combatant-, for it would be difficult to find an able-bodied man of 
that period who had not seen hard service, either as a volunteer or 
detached militiaman. Our infant town had her representatives at 
Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill, Quebec, Long Island, Saratoga, and many 
other battle fields. 

The following soldiers from this town went to Ticonderoga in 1775, 
in Captain Sedgwick's Company, Colonel Hinman's Regiment: — 

Warham Gibbs, Lieut., Nathan Balcom, William Stannard, 

Charles Wright, Jr., Hawkins Woodruff, Lemuel Walter, 

Adam Mott, John Derby, Noah Gleason, Jr., 

. Ebenezer Shepard, David Goflf, Abraham Wilkinson, 

Stephen Arnold, Peleg Sweet, Elisha Smith, 

Freedom Wright, Oliver Coe, Sen. 

Charles Wright and Ebenezer Shepard marched to the relief of 
Boston on the Lexington alarm. 
21 



162 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Samuel Hurlbut, John Sweet, and Lemuel Stannard served in the 
7th Regiment in 1775. 

Daniel Hurlbut Cone and William Lucas served in Colonel Meigs' 
Regiment in 1775. 

Benoni Brownson served in Captain Hooker's Company in 1775. 

Stephen Knowlton served 5th company, 3d Regiment. 

Judah West. " 8th " 2d « 

Gideon Wilcoxson * " 10th " 7th " 

Shubael Cook, " 4th " 8th " 

Ebenezer Rowley, " 9th " 8th " 

Nathan Blackman, Capt. Smith's " 8th " 

David Beebe, " " 8th « 

Truman Gibhs, Major Weld's Company. 

Benjamin Palmer, " " 

Josiah Adkins, Captain Arnold's Company, Wooster's Regiment. 

John Arnold, Captain Denny's Company, Hosford's Regiment, in 
1776. 

William Leach, Colonel Ducher's (4th) Regiment, in 1779. 

Do. Captain Converse's Company, 7th Regiment, in 1780. 

Lemuel Walter, Captain Alden's Company, Colonel Butler's Regiment, 
in 1780. 

Samuel Roberts, Captain Alden's Company, Colonel Butler's Regt., 
in 1780. 

John Balcom, Captain Alden's Company, Colonel Butler's Regiment, 
in 1780. 

Daniel Walter, Colonel Swift's Regiment, in 1780. 

Oliver Coe, Jr., Captain Porson's Company, Col. Butler's Regt., 1780. 

Samuel Mott, " " " 

Peter Corbin, Sherman's Company, 8th Regiment, " 

Daniel Wright, " " " 

Ebenezer Coe, " _ " « 

The following other men served in the continental army prior to 1780, 
as appears by a certificate of the selectmen : — 

George Hudson, Stephen Hurlbut, Gerdiom Fay, 

Peabody Stannard, Levi Wilkinson, William Fay, 

Jonathan Preston, Stephen Schovil, Timothy Fay, 

Prince Negro, Adam Mott, Seth Stannard, 

John Fay, Remembrance Filley, Jesse Wilkinson. 



* He served in Captain Beebe's Company in 1776, arid died while a prisoner of war 
in the Sugar House, New York. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 1(33 

Of these, Remembrance Filley, Gershom Fay, and William Fay, 
belonged to Captain Beebe's Litchfield Company. 

Oliver Coe, Jr., and Wait Loomis, also served under General Harmer, 
in the Indian War in Ohio. 

David Austin, Daniel Corbin, and William Leach belonged to Captain 
Medad Hills' Company, enlisted in 1776. 

William Stannard served in Captain .Morris's Company, Bradley's 
Regiment, in J 781. 

Richard Coit served in the 6th Troop in 1781, and in various regi- 
ments during the war. 

David Goff and his son. served in the Northern Army in 1776. 

The names here given arc found on such of the muster and pay-rolls 
and other documents as are preserved in the state archives, the series of 
which is very imperfect, and embraces only a limited portion of the 
military service performed. Scarcely a vestige is found of the service of 
drafted militia, repeatedly called out from Litchfield County to Danbury. 
Horse Neck, Long Island, Peekskill, and other points on the North 
River, during the long, protracted struggle for the possession of the 
Highlands. Probably not an able-bodied man of the town failed of being 
called out more than once on this harrassing service. 

The town records refer, in 1777, to "those who went out with 
Ensign Ozias Brownson last April, with Sergeant Timothy Benedict in 
August, and with Lieutenant Benedict;" in 1778, " to Sergeant Free- 
dom Wright, and John Balcom, Jr., for doing a tour of duty last year in 
the Northern Army;" in 1780, "to those men who are or may be 
detailed with the army between the 1st day of June last and the 1st of 
January next." Li 1781 it was voted to try to get Dolphin's son (a 
negro) " to count for Winchester," and " to make application to General 
Parsons, or some other general officer, to try to procure a pardon for 
Jonathan Preston, on account of his deserting the army," and " to raise; 
a man to supply the place of George Hudson in the Continental Army." 
In 1782 it was voted "to hire the men now called for, for the guard at 
Horse Neck, and to fill the deficiencies in the Continental Army 'till 
December next." 

Many other inhabitants, not named in any of the pay rolls or votes of 
the town referred to, are known to have heen in the service. 

John Church served in the Canada invasion under Arnold, and was 
in the battle at Saratoga. 

Deacon Seth Hills served at Saratoga, and was present at Burgoyne's 
surrender. 

Joseph Hoskin served as a trooper on Long Island, and was in the 
rear guard at the retreat from Brooklyn Heights. 



164 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Captain Moses Hatch enlisted at sixteen, and served through the 
war.* 

A company of which John Hills was Captain, and Ozias Brownson 
Lieutenant, served at New York while General Putnam commanded in 
that department. 

We have before us a " Muster Roll " of Captain John Hills' Company, 
for the year 1778. from which we copy the names, embracing all the sub- 
jects of military duty in the town at that period, though it is not sup- 
posed that all, or a major part of them, were on the special service at 
New York. 

Captain John Hills, 
Lieutenant Benjamin Benedict, 
Ensign Ozias Brownson, 
Sergeant Elislia Wilcoxson, 

" Jonathan Coe, 

" Eliphaz Alvord, 

" Joseph P'risbee, 
Corporal Samuel Hurlbut, 

". Abel Wetmore, 

" Josiah Smith, 

" John Wright, 
Fifer Belah Hills, 

" Levi Brownson, 
Drummer Joseph Dodge, 

" Andrew Avret, 

" John Austin. 



* The late Dr. T. S. Wetmore informed the compiler that on the passage of the 
Revolutionary Pension Law, Captain Hatch made application for a pension, which 
was rejected for want of documentary proofs of his service. He was then advised by 
the Doctor to make another application, and to detail the events connected with his 
service, which might lead to his identification. It was drawn up by the Doctor, and 
among other incidents he related the occurrence of his capturing a Tory spy while on 
picket guard, and bringing him before his colonel, who instantly recognized the spy, 
and ordered him to be taken out and shot, remarking that the fellow had once betrayed 
him into the hands of the enemy, and tried his best to get him executed as a spy. 

This application, with many others, remained undecided on the files of the Wat- 
Department, until the Secretaryship of John C. Spencer, during President Tyler's 
administration, who determined to bring them to a final adjudication. While 
examining Captain Hatch's application, the identical colonel called on him on 
business. Mr. Spencer read him the statement, and enquired whether he remem- 
bered the circumstance. He replied, " Yes, I remember it well, and the name of the 
captor of the scoundrel was Moses Hatch, as good a soldier as ever shouldered a 
musket." The pension was at once awarded. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



165 



PRIVATES : 



Daniel Andrus, 

Eli. Andrus, 
Steven Arnold, 
Joel Beach, 
Natl) an Balconi, 
Jonathan Balcom, 
John Balcom, Jr., 
John Beach, 
Timothy Benedick, 
Azariah Bradley, 
Aaron Cook, 
Hezekiah Elmer, 
Remembrance Eilley, 
Daniel Grover, 
Zimri Hills, 
Chauncey Hills, 
Seth Kellogg, 
William Kies, 
Ichabod Loomis, 
Samuel McCune, 
Gershom McCune, Jr., 
Reuben Miner, 
Samuel Preston, 
Joseph Plat, 
Philip Priest, 
William Fay, 
Phineas Griswold, 
Ambrose Palmer, 
Reuben Sweet, 
Peleg Sweet, 
William Stannard, 
Reuben Palmer, 
Lazarus Palmer, 
Lemuel Stannard, Jr., 
Jesse Wilkinson, 
Reuben Wilkinson, 



Reuben Tucker, 
David Alvord, 
Lemuel Walter, 
John Walter, 
James Stevenson, 
Richard Coit, 
Thomas Spencer, 
Amasa Wade, 
Joel Roberts, 
Timothy Fay, 
Steven Hurlbut, 
Phineas Potter, 
Preserved Crissee, 
Abraham Andrews, Jr. 
John Austin, Jr., 
Samuel Mott, 
Phineas Smith, 
David Mills, 
Daniel Corbin, 
Simeon Hurlbut, 
Samuel Roberts, 
Elijah Castel, 
Benjamin Palmer, 
Silas Filer, 
Peter Corbin, Jr., 
Samuel Castel, 
Moses Derbye, 
William Leach, 
Isaac Filley, 
John Spencer, 
Moses Roberts, 
Jacob Palmer, 
Daniel Loomis, 
Abner Coe, 
John Church, 
Palmer. 



This list embraces but few of the names of those who served in the early 
part of the war, — while many of the names copied have either been can- 
celed or encircled with lines, to indicate that by active service or for some 
other cause they had become exempt. 



IQQ ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

It is proper to say that some of the persons whose names have been ex- 
ti acted from the pay rolls, performed the services referred to before be- 
coming inhabitants of the town. 

On a general survey of the town at this period, it appears that the first 
or old Society was mainly settled ; and had nearly as large a population 
as it has at the present time. Then, as now, the southern portion had a 
denser population than the northern, or Danbury quarter. 

The portion of Winsted on or near the old North Road, was in a good 
measure settled, and inhabitants were thinly scattered along the Spencer 
Street Road, from Colebrook line down to the northern outskirt of the 
Borough of Winsted, and along the Still River valley from the crossing 
of the North road to Still River Bridge ; — and a few families had located 
on the South Street road. 

Deacon Auslin had located himself and built his mill at the outlet of 
Long Lake, and a few other families had settled around him, but no set- 
tler had yet ventured down the hill into the savage and almost impene- 
trable valley now populated with more than thive thousand inhabitants 
and active with a business exceeding that of any other village in the 
County. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

WINCHESTER SOCIETY CONTINUED. 
1784 TO 1701. 

In annual town meeting of this year, in addition to routine business, 
it was voted " That swine be free commoners, with a good and suitable 
yoke." 

The society records show the doings of thirteen meetings during the 
year, none of which were of special interest. Efforts were made to 
collect arrearages on old rate bills, and a large number of them were 
wiped out by excusing the delinquents from payment. Six choristers 
were appointed, the difficulties between Mr. Knapp and disaffected 
parishioners were ventilated, and Rev. Messrs. Sherman of Goshen, 
Mills of Torringford, and Bobbins of Norfolk were named as an advisory 
council "in matters between Mr. Knapp and y" Society;" Mr. Knapp's 
accounts were settled, and a three and three-quarter-penny tax was laid 
to pay up the arrearages found due him. A place for building a new 
meeting house had been established by the county court, which, not 
proving acceptable, a new location was agreed on (by a vote of 33 to 16), 
near the burying ground, and then a new locating committee was 
appointed, whose doings were accepted, but it does not appear what 
place was designated. 

The new comers of the year 1784 were as follows : — 

David Gaylord from Cambridge, Hartford County, had an interest 
in the two wedge lots adjoining Colebrook line, at the northwest corner 
of the town. In 1792, in his deed conveying away these lots, he is 
named of Bristol. There was said to have been a man of this name who 
kept a tavern in that region in early times. 

Samukl Hawley from Salisbury, owned the farm in Danbury 
Quarter a little north of the burying ground, afterwards occupied by his 
son-in-law, John Benedict, and recently owned by William Price. He 
died on this farm, February 10, 1820, aged 74. He married July 30, 
1782, Rebecca Taylor, who died March 9, 1820, aged 69. 



168 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, • 

Didymtjs Shepard, named of Winchester, was tried before Justice 
Alvord, February 5, 1784, for " prophane swearing," and on his plea of 
guilty was fined 6s., and costs 2s. On April 26 following, he was again 
brought before Esquire Alvord, and tried for a like offence, on his plea 
of not guilty, whereupon he was acquitted, and ordered to be dismissed 
on pay i7i g the cost of prosecution, taxed at £1 Os. 6d., and to .stand com- 
mitted until the costs were paid. As his name no where else appears, it 
is probable that he fled the town through fear of another acquittal ! 

Peleg Sweet, named of Torrington, July 10, 1784, and of Win- 
chester, August 24, 1785, owned and lived on the Harry Brooks Farm, 
Danbury Quarter, until 1807, when he moved to Ashtabula, Ohio. The 
house he occupied is believed to be the wing of the present residence of 
Mr. Brooks. He married November 20, 1777, Mary Wilkinson. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lorrain, h. September 17, 1778; m. October 6, 1799, 

Huldah Benedict, and had one child, Candace, b. April 22, 1800. 
II. Susanna, b. December 6, 1780. 

III. Isaac, b. March 13, 1783. 

IV. Mart, b. March 11, 1785. 

V. Clarissa, b. March 13, 1787; d. August 19, 1797. 

VI. Ara (twin), b. February 13, 1789. 

VII. Ira (twin), b. February 13, 1789. 

VIII. Lewis, b. April 7, 1791. 
IX. Frederick Aldridge, b. June 10, 1793. 

X. Feleg, b. August 10, 1795. 

XL Clarissa, b. August 19, 1797. 

XII. Willard, b. March 13, 1800. 

1785. 

No business of special interest was transacted in the town meetings of 
this year. 

The Society held eleven meetings during the year, with a view to 
locating and building a new meeting-house. A location would be fixed 
at one meeting, and reconsidered, and a new one established at another, 
and then the doings of the second meeting reconsidered, and the first 
location re-established. The size of the house to be erected was first 
fixed at 46 by 56 feet, then it was changed to 50 by 40, and then four 
feet was added to the length, and then a tax of one shilling on the pound 
was voted, and a committee appointed to apply to the Assembly for 
power to tax non-resident landowners eightpence on the acre. A build- 
ing committee was appointed, who were instructed " to carry on the 
building forthwith." At this stage of the business, a new meeting was 
held, which reconsidered the previous doings, and petitioned the Assembly 
to free the Society from public taxes, until it can build a meeting-house. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 169 

A subsequent meeting instructed Mr. Hurlbut " to repair the old meet- 
ing house, viz. : lay down boards on the joists, that people may sit above ; 
also, make a ladder or stairs to go up into the upper part of the meeting- 
house, and make seats to sit on above, and that he do the same at the 
cost of the Society." The old meeting-house, of unknown origin, and 
located nearly a mile south of the present center, has been already 
described.* It would be incredible that such a place "for men to sit 
above," as was constructed pursuant to the foregoing vote, could have 
been resorted to, were not the frame of the structure stillf a standing 
witness to the fact that the attic gallery existed, with the rafters coming- 
down to the floor, the floor having an opening of not more than nine feet 
square over the pulpit, through which the good Parson Knapp was 
required to throw up his preaching to the hungry sinners who had made 
their venturous way up the outside ladder, through a gable door, into 
this cock-loft. It is equally hard to conceive that three readers and four 
or five choristers should be needed to conduct the psalm-singing in a 
building of such modest dimensions. 

The conflicting votes above referred to were all adopted between the 
first of January and last of May. In September it was voted " to build 
a meeting house near the crotch of the roads by Mr. Hurlbut's, at a 
stake and stones within Doctor Everitt's home lot, about twelve or 
fifteen rods from his dwelling house, if on application made to the county 
court said place shall be established," and " if the court do not establish 
the above-mentioned place, to apply for a new committee." 

October 6, five choristers were appointed, and the vote to build the 
meeting house on the spot designated was reiterated. 

December 12 it was voted to build, cover, and close it in, and lay the 
lower floor by the first of the following October ; also, " to raise one 
shilling on the pound of the list of August, 1785, to be paid in good 
pine boards, or whitewood clapboards, or neat cattle, or labor, or good 
pine shingles, the boards and shingles to be delivered by y c 10th day of 
June next, and what is not paid by said 10th of June, to be paid in beef 
cattle by y e 10th day of October next, and y e above articles to be deliv- 
ered at y e meeting house spot." 

The building spot selected, and on which the new house was erected, 
and in process of time completed, was on the green nearly in front of the 
dwelling of Theron Bronson, Esq. The ground was then covered with 
a heavy growth of chestnut trees. 

1785. 

The new comers of this year were as follows : — 

Salmon Hawley from Stratford, who built and lived in the first 

* Page 78. 

t This paragraph was written heibre the building fell, in 1867. 
22 



170 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

house above the Dugway, on the old Winchester road, lately owned by 
Sophronia Leonai'd, and now torn down. He sold out in 1795, and his 
name is not found on the tax list afterwards. He married Jane . 

CHILDREN. 

I. Jerusha, b. in Stratford, January 28, 1778. 

II Wm. Salmon, b. " December 25, 1779. 

III. Eunice, b. " April 20, 1782. 

IV. Susanna, b. " March 9, 1784. 
V. James, b. in Winchester, April 27, 1786. 

VI. Daniel, b. " February 16, 1789. 

VII. Avis, b. " May 17, 1793. 

Charles Kent, who lived in Hall Meadow, near Rufus Drake's, 
until 1787, was fined for profane swearing in 1787, and is described as 
an absconding debtor in 1788. 

Zeba Meacham is on the tax list of this year, and onward to 1789. 
He owned land on the old south road, north of the Everitt place. 

Simeon Moore, Jr., son of Simeon of Windsor, this year received by 
conveyance from his father the James Crocker farm, and other adjacent 
lands. He lived in the Crocker house (now torn down), at the parting 
of the old Waterbury Turnpike from the Green Woods Turnpike, until 
about 1808, when he removed to Ohio. His wife, Hannah, died October 
22, 1794. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lovina, b. April 16, 1786 ; m. Elijah Benedict. 

II. Wealthy, b. March 24, 1 789. 

III. Simeon, b. June 8, 1791. 

IV. Hannah, b. January 15, 1794. 

Captain John Nash 6 came from Torrington to Winchester in early 
life, and for many years followed the joiner's trade, after which he became 
a highly respected and wealthy farmer. He first owned and occupied 
a house at the center, afterward burned down, which stood on the site of 
Rev. Frederick Marsh's residence. He afterward built and occupied 
during his remaining life the house now owned by his son, Alva Nash, 
Esq., half a mile north of the center. He was a man of pure life and 
kind heart, universally respected, and often employed in the affairs of 
the town. 

He was born in West Hartford, July 18, 1758, son of John 5 (born 
December 1, 1728), and Mary (Graves) Nash ; g. son of Moses 4 (born 
Hadley, July 2, 1696), and Rebecca (Kellogg) Nash; g.g. son of 
Lieutenant John 3 and Elizabeth (Kellogg) Nash ; g.g.g. son of Timothy 2 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 171 

(born 1626) and Rebecca (Stone) Nash, and g.g.g.g. son of Thomas 1 and 
Margery Nash, who were among the first settlers of New Haven. He 
married Esther Whiting, born Torrington, September 13, 1763, daughter 
of Benjamin and Esther Whiting. She died March 4, 1835, aged 71 
years ; he died October 21, 1835, aged 77 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I, Lucy, 7 b. May 8, 1783 ; m. December, 1801, John Wetmore. 

II. Hannah, 7 b. December 23, 1787; m. October 22, 1811 ; Wm. 
Crura. 

III. Alvah, 7 1). September 26, 1793. 

IV. Mary Graves, 7 b. January 21, 1797; m. 1819, October 27, Caivin 

Sage of Colebrook. 
V. Nancy, 7 b. June 2, 1801 ; m. May 30, 1827, Stephen Monson. 

VI. Samuel John, 7 b. September 25, 1806; d. September 8, 1808. 

Alva Nash, 7 Esq., a clothier and farmer, resides in the paternal 
homestead, half a mile north of the center. He has twice represented 
the town in the General Assembly, and has held the office of justice of 
the peace. He married March 16, 1S19, Rebecca Sage. 

CHILDREN. 

I Susan Rebecca, b. October 12, 1820; m. November 4, 1845, Isaac A. 

Bronson. She d. April 7, 1857. 
II. Lorenzo Samuel, b. December 30, 1S23; m. January, 1852, Caroline 
E. Tuller. 

Daniel Sandiforth's name is on the tax list of this year. He was 
son of the wife of Reuben Miner by her first husband, and is believed to 
have removed to New Hartford. 

Nathan L. Wade's name is also on the tax list of this year. 

Justus Wright, a carpenter, who was of Torrington, December 29, 
1783, was named in the tax list of 1785. He owned and occupied the 
former homestead of Aaron Cook in Blue Street, which he sold in 1795 ; 
he married December 2, 1784, Abigail Blackman ; had son, Calvin, 
born October 5, 1785. 

The freemen admitted this year were William Castel and Bela Hills. 

1786. 

The following vote in town meeting this year, indicates a prudent care 
of the people to prevent improper allowances, by the Selectmen, of claims 
against the town. 



172 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Voted, that not any person whatever, who shall do any service for the 
town the present year, shall be allowed to receive any reward therefor, 
until he shall exhibit his account before the next annual town meeting, 
and have his account allowed by said meeting. ■ 

Another, appointing a committee " to examine into the debts due to 
and from the town, and make out an exact statement of accounts respect- 
ing the town's debts and credits and lay the same before the next town 
meeting," seems to show that the chronic tendency of the town's affairs 
to get into a snarl, had an early beginning. 

The Society, this year, voted a tax of 3 pence on the Pound, to enable 
the meeting house committee to procure glass and nails ; — to be paid in 
beef, cattle or pork, or flax seed, or one-quarter of it in butter or cheese, at 
the current market price, or in cash at a deduction of 10 per cent. 

The electors admitted this year were John Wright, Martin North, Jr., 
and Richard Coit. 

The new comers of the year were: 

William Keyes, whose name is on the tax list of 1786, resided in the 
town until near the close of the last century. He is named of Torring- 
ton in 1797. He owned in 1786, for about a year, nineteen acres of land 
in the vicinity of Alva Nash ; and afterward had an interest in land on the 
Green Woods turnpike, near the Green Woods Hotel. He married, Jan- 
uary 2, 1777, Seba Smith. 

CHILDREN. 

I. William, 2 b. Jan. 12, 1778. 

II. Prudence, 2 b. Dec. 7, 1779. 

III. Sally, 2 b. " 24, 1783. 

IV. Trumbull, 2 b. Oct. 3, 1787. 

William Keyes, 2 married, November 23, 1797, Anna, daughter of 
John Sweet ; lived in the house at the east corner of Lake and Rockwell 
streets, and died about 1800, leaving a son, William. She married (2d), 
Rev. Daniel Coe. 

London, or Lunnon, a negro, a resident of the town, was, this year, 
brought before Justice Alvord on a complaint for breach of the peace. 
The complaint was quashed. He had wife Phillis. 

1787. 

A petition was brought to the October session of the General Assem- 
bly of 1786, for incorporating the east part of Winchester and the part 
of Barkhamsted west of Farmington River as a town, which was continued 
through the years 1787 and 1788, and finally rejected. In the annual 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 173 

town meeting of this year the town voted its assent to the prayer of the 
petition, provided the new town should not extend westerly beyond the 
Long Pond and the west boundary of the second tier; which would have 
excluded all the inhabitants on Coe Street, north of the Indian Meadow 
bridge. 

The following document was entered on the Society records of this 
year. 

Winchester, October 9th, 1786. This may certify that I have received 
from the Society's Committee in full all that was due me from the So- 
ciety, from the beginning of the world to the year 1782. 

Witness my hand, Joshua Knapp. 

The following freemen were admitted this year : John Marshall, Abra- 
ham Andrews, Jr., John Nash, William Chamberlin, Ozias Brownson, Jr., 
Lemuel Bassett, and Martin Hurlbut. 

Only one new resident of Winchester Society is found this year, while 
the new comers into Winsted were more numerous than in any previous 
year. 

David Hungerford, of that part of Farmington which is now Bristol, 
was a soldier in the French war, and died near Saratoga, New York, of 
camp fever, aged 45 years. lie had five children, of whom David died 
about the same time as his father, of the same disease, aged 18. Joel and 
Jonah .settled in Watertown, Connecticut, and had families. Ann mar- 
ried Rev. Mr. Tiler, and was the youngest. 

Reuben Hungerford, born in Bristol September 9, 1748; married, 
April — , 1776. Olive Gavlord, born June 24, 1760. He bought land in 
Winchester, February 4, 1780, when he was named of Farmington; 
again June 14, 1783, when he was of Norfolk; and September 6, 1787 
he was of Winchester, and so appears by frequent deeds thereafter. He 
first lived near the Norfolk line, until April 6, 1795, he bought of Moses 
Wright, of Colebrook, the. place directly opposite the Green Woods Hotel, 
where he spent the rest of his liie.* He served three months in the war 

*IIe was a man of great energy and marked peculiarities. The story is told of an 
assessment in old Winchester for building the second meeting house, in which he was 
assessed beyond all reason by the committee appointed for that purpose. At the meet- 
ing to which the committee reported their assessments, Mr. Hungerford protested in 
bis nervous Saxon that he wouldn't pay such an extortionate assessment, — that they 
might build their own meeting house ; — and he would go down to Noppit to meeting. 
The meeting was adjourned without action on the subject matter for a week. At the 
adjourned meeting Mr. Hungerford entered another appearance with a changed mind. 
"Mr. Moderator," said he, " I told you t'other day I'd go to Noppit to meeting before 
I'd pay my tax. I've been thinkin' it over since, — and I now think, for a man who 
haint got no religion to go deviling off down to Noppit to get it, is a mean business. 
I won't do it, but I'll pay my tax like a man." 



174 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

of the revolution. He died November 10, 1828. His wife was the pro- 
fessional mid-wife of the region, attending all calls, and often riding six 
or eight miles on horse back, with one of her own nursing babes in her 
arms, until incapacitated by age. Her last professional service being at 
the birth of George E. Woodford, March 27, 1836, when she had to be 
carried in a rocking-chair. She is entitled to this notice for assisting the 
compiler of these annals into the world in 1799. She died in Winchester 
July 6, 1839, aged 79. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lois, b. in Winchester, Jan. 29, 1777; m. Nov. 20, 1794, Joseph 

Cowles; they were among the first settlers of Austinburgh, Ohio in 
1801. Shed. March 9, 1841. 
II. Polly, m. Shubael Coy, settled in Oxford, N. Y., where she d. in 

1832. 

III. Amos, b. Dec. 17, 1781; m. 1814, Betsey Latourette ; settled at 

Mt, Morris, N. Y. He d. May 6, 1861 . 

IV. Chauncey, b. ; d. aged 7 years. 
V. Reuben, b. June 3, 1786; d. Jan. 27, 1809. 

VI. Olive, b. April 19, 1788; m. Noah North; settled in Alexander, 

N. Y., where he d. Sept. 28, 1824, and she March 11, 1849. 
VII. Sally, b. Feb. 12, 1790; m. Jan. 23, 1813, Halsey Phillips ; set- 

tled in Colebrook, Ohio; she d. Feb. 2, 1867. 
VIII. Ann, b. April 5, 1793 ; m. Salmon Drake ; she d. Aug. 26, 1866, 

leaving a son Henry Huugerford, b. Feb. 21, 1833, who m. May 18, 
1862, Mariam Roberts, b. in Colebrook, Sept. 7, 1840. 

CHILDREN. 

1. George F., b. May 12, 1864. 

2. Anna, b. Sept. 8, 1866. 

IX. Lucinda (twin), b. Dec. 30, 1794; m. April, 1825, Ethan Pendleton; she 
d. in Norfolk, June 29, 1829 
X. Delinda (twin), b. Dec. 30, 1794; d. Jan. 10, 1809, of hydrocephalus. 
XI. Candace, b. Sept. 5, 1798; m. May 19, 1819, Samuel D. Gilbert; 

she d. June 17, 1840. 
XII. Amanda, b. Sept. 16, 1801 ; d. unmarried, Feb. 26, 1847. 

XIII. Chauncey, b. March 11, 1803; m. April 20, 1825, Cynthia Allen, b. 

Oct. 22, 1804 ; settled in Mt. Morris, N. Y. 



1788. 

The town manifested its appreciation of the services of its officers and 
agents, by the following vote in annual meeting this year : 

Voted, that none that shall do business for the town, in the town, the 
year ensuing, shall have any wages therefor, except one meal of victuals 
a day. 

In Society meeting, a tax of 1^ pence on the pound was laid, "to ena- 
ble the Meeting House Committee to pay the debts they have contracted 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 175 

for building the meeting house, and also to procure class for the glazing 
of the meeting house, to be paid by the 15th day of December next." 

This is the only record indicating the progress thus far made in the 
work, which by a former vote was directed to be finished by 1st October, 
1786. 

The freemen admitted this year were, Justus Wright, Samuel Roberts, 
Peter Blackman, John Videto, Christopher Whiting, Levi Wilkinson, 
Joel Coe, Zalmon Benedict, and Jesse Hills. 

The new comers were as follows : 

Zalmon Benedict, son of Silas Benedict, from Danbury, who was 
killed in the Wyoming massacre. He returned with his mother to Dan- 
bury, and thence removed to Winchester this year as is supposed. He 
first lived in a log house in Danbury quarter, some thirty rods south o! the 
iron mine ; afterward on Taylor's Brook near Torrington line, — and 
after 1805, in Danbury quarter, not far from the burying ground. He m. 
Chloe Perry, of Danbury. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, 2 b. Oct. 22, 1789. 
II. Lovisa, 2 b. Nov. 12, 1791 ; m. Feb. 2, 1820, Norman Baldwin. 
III. Ruama, 2 b. June 1, 1794; m. — Pratt. 

John Benedict, 2 resided on the Samuel Hawley place, 100 rods 
north of the Danbury Burying Ground, till about I860, and now lives in 
Norfolk. He m. Jan. 30, 1811, Rebecca, dan. of Samuel Havvdey ; she 
d. May 10, 1857. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Samuel Hawley, b. Jan. 25, 1814; m. Lavina Canfield. 

II. Laura, b. 1816; id. Samuel Hart. 

III. Ltman, b. 1818; m. Polly Simons. 

IV. Caroline, b. 1820; m. William Price. 
V. William, b. 1822. 

VI. Helen. b. Aug. 13, 1838; m. Newman B. Gilbert. 

Nathan Broughton lived until 1792 in a log house on Sucker 
Brook road, near the house built by James B. White, now owned by Fit- 
tus Stack. He probably left the town before 1800. He had wife, 
Elizabeth. 

children. 

I. Charles, b. Jan. 23, 1782. 

II. Mary, b. Sept. 17, 1784. 

III. Darius Clark, b. Ann-. 31, 1786; d. Sept. 5, 1788. 

IV. Nathan, b. July 31, 1788. 



176 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

V. Darius Clark, b. Nov. 14, 1790. 

VI. Uriel, b. Oct. 12, 1792. 

VII. Esther, b. Aug. 13, 1794. 

Ephraim Foot, from Colchester, owned and lived on the Edward 
Rugg Farm, in Danbury Quarter, from 1788 to 1795, after which he 
removed to Hamilton, Herkimer Co., N. Y. 

Roswell Grant, son of Elijah Grant of Norfolk, resided until 1804 
in the northwest corner of the town, on part of the Richard Beckley 
farm, and afterward lived for many years on the same farm in Norfolk. 
He was a large farmer and laborious man, honest and conscientious in a 
way of his own. Having carelessly left his barn doors open through a 
mid- winter night, he punished himself the night following by again open- 
ing them and sitting in the draft of a bitter northwest wind until morn- 
ing. In his declining years he became poor, and worked in Winsted as a 
hired man. Such was his love for work, that he would steal off on Sun- 
days and hoe his pious employer's potatoes, without his knowledge, and 
without compensation. 

He joined the Continental Army when seventeen years old, and endured 
hard service with characteristic fortitude. When Baron Steuben was 
selecting his corps for special discipline, he passed in front of Grant's 
company while on parade. Grant was surprised to find himself the only 
man taken from the company, being, as he said, " such a little nubbin' of 
a fellow, I had no idea he would take me." While in the Highlands, he 
was posted as guard on one of the bleakest points, in extremely cold 
weather ; the army moved, without recalling him, but he stuck to his 
post till relieved, two days after. 

Going to Litchfield in his advanced life, on foot, a neighbor entrusted 
him with a letter to be delivered there. He had reached within a mile of 
his home, after dark, on his return, when he discovered that he had brought 
the letter back. He immediately turned and walked fourteen miies to 
Litchfield, delivered the letter, and came home before daylight the next 
morning. 

He m. Anna Coy, who d. March — , 1810, aged 50 years; and he m. 
(2d) May 16, 1811, Mrs. Elizabeth Lawrence. She d. Oct. 6, 1815, 
aged 45. He d. July 7, 1837, aged nearly 75 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Maiiala, b. Norfolk, July 31, 1 7 S 5 ; m. Elijah Piuney. 

II. Amarilla Minerva, b. N., March—, 1789; d. W., Ap. 23, 1S52, unm. 

III. Deidamia A., b. N., May — , 1794; m. Edwin M. Strong. 

IV. Sage Washington, b. N., Aug. 13, 1800; m. Lucy Spaulding of New 

Marlborough, Mass. He d. AV., Nov. 4, 1806. Shorn. (2d) Roswell 
Smith. They had a son, Ward Grant, now living. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 177 



CHILDREN BY SECOND "WIFE. 

V. A Daughter (twin), b. N., Feb. 11, 1812. 

VI Anna Elizabeth (twin), b. N., Feb. 11, 1812. 



Hewitt Hills, son of Medad, of Goshen, a large farmer, and promi- 
nent business man of the town, this year settled on the farm, and built 
the house thereon, now owned by Henry Drake on Blue Street, near Tor- 
rington line. He was a representative to the General Assembly between 
1790 and 1800, and filled at various times most of the town offices. 

In company with Thomas Spencer, Jr., about 17 ( JG, he built and traded 
in the building on Lake Street, where the depot of the Conn. Western 
R. R. now stands. He was a man of good person and address, shrewd 
in his business, and influential in the community. He removed to Ver- 
non, Oneida Co., N. Y„ about 1805. No record of his family is found, 
except the following marriages of his daughters. 

I. Lucy Hills, m. May 28, 1795, Thomas Spencer, Jr. 

II. Mary Hills, m. Nov. 16, 1797, Abijah Brownson. 

III. Eliza Hills, m. Isaac Brownson. 

IV. Lodisa Hills, m. March, 1802, Stephen Wade. 

Jacob Kimberly is named of Goshen, in a deed of January 23, 
1788, conveying to him a half acre lot, with a house thereon, on the west 
side of the Hall Meadow stream near Torrington line, which he there- 
after occupied until 1791 or later. He was of Goshen in 1794, of 
Winchester in 1801, of Torrington in 1802, when lie bought the farm 
now owned by Amanda Church, on the Little Pond road, near Green 
Woods Turnpike, and resided there until 18<)4, and then bought and 
occupied the George Raymond farm on Wallen's Hill, wdiich he sold to 
Jesse Clarke in 1805. He was living in Otis, Mass., in 1815. He was 
a convivial man, of great humor. His witty sayings are still quoted by 
the old people in this community. 

Jacob Ki.mbkrly, Jr., in 1800, became the owner of the old Caleb 
Beach place, in Hall Meadow, and resided there until his death, Decem- 
ber 24, 1813. He married June 11, 1797, Nancy Pond. 

children. 

I. Laura, b. April 15, 1798. 

II. Ekeelove, b. November 2, 1799; d. September 17, 1801. 

III. Olive, b. April 14, 1801 ; d. November 3, 1808. 

IV. Ekeelove, b. January 21, 1804. 
V. Horace Sidney, b. July 26, 1805. 

VI. Estuek Emily, b. June 22, 1807. 

23 



178 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

VII. Maky Mehitabel, b. March 17, 1810. 
VIII. Silas, b. April 21), 1812 ; d. December 6, 1812. 

IX. Jacob Harvey, b. November 8, 1813. 

Joel and Elisha Kimberly, sons of Jacob, Senr., received from 
him a deed of land in 1 802, east of Green Woods Turnpike, opposite the 
Little Pond Road Bridge over Mad River, which they parted with in 
1804, and are no more found on the records. 

David Muruay, a Scotch-Irishman, was assessed on the list of this 
year. In 1789, his wife, Sarah, became the owner of a lot, witli a log- 
shanty thereon, on the easterly side of the Dugway road, nearly opposite 
Mrs. Sopronia Leonard's, in which they lived until 1793, or later. It is 
believed that they removed to Vernon, N. Y. 

Their son, William, had a family, and lived in various parts of Win- 
sted, until he removed to Colebrook about 1840. He married, not far 
from 1806, Ann Hewitt. 

Hkman Smith, from Goshen, this year bought and moved on to the 
farm of Noah Gleason, on the south part of Blue Street, which he occu- 
pied until 1801, when he sold out to Isaac Brownson, and removed to 
Vernon, N. Y. He was a man highly esteemed, prominent in town 
affairs, and three times a representative of the town between 1795 and 
1800. He was a son of Stephen Smith from Farmington, was born in 
Goshen, and married Hannah Dunning. He left no record of his family 
in Winchester. 

1789. 

The records of town meetings this year embrace routine business only. 
No freemen were admitted. 

Eleven society meetings were held. Much action was had on the 
matter of arrearages in the collection of society rates. Numbers who 
were too poor to pay were excused, and those delinquents not excused 
were allowed to pay in good merchantable sheep at a penny a pound, in 
lambs at a penny and a farthing, in good well-washed wool at sixteen 
pence, to be delivered to the Society's Committee at the parsonage by the 
29th of June. 

A bad habit oi unpunctual attendance at society meetings was 
attempted to be corrected by a vote " that all society meetings to be 
hereafter held, either by warning or adjournment, shall be opened within 
one hour after the time appointed," .aid " that no vote passed in such 
meetings after sun setting shall be deemed a legal vcte." 

The absence of auy allusion to discontent with Mr. Knapp for a few 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 179 

years past seemed to indicate a wearing away of old grudges. We are 
therefore surprised to find the following vote of July 17 : — 

Voted — That Lieutenant Samuel Hurlbut, John Minor, Levi Norton, 
Thomas Spencer, and Huitt Hills, be a committee to attend with the 
Church Committee in stating the matters of grievance with Rev. Mr. 
Knapp's past conduct. July 24 it was voted, to lay our matters of diffi- 
culty between Mr. Knapp and the Church and Society before the 
Association, and to invite the Association to meet at the house of Levi 
Brownson, on Tuesday, three weeks from next Tuesday, at 1 1 A.M. 
August 19 it was voted "that it shall be lawful to transact business in 
this meeting until midnight," and before midnight it was voted to accept 
the advice of the Association. 

What causes of grievance were presented, and what advice was given, 
does not appear, either on the society or church records, but probably a 
dismission was recommended, as it was voted, September 8, to join with 
the church in calling the Consociation to dismiss Rev. Mr. Knapp from 
his pastoral charge on the day appointed by the church, the second 
Tuesday of October next. On the church records is entered a request, 
of Mr. Knapp, and a vote of concurrence by the church, passed on the 
day assigned for meeting of Consociation, that the pastoral relation of Mr. 
Knapp to the church should be dissolved. 

" Mr. Knapp was a talented preacher, and a good man. He retained 
the affection of a large portion of his people as long as he lived ; preached 
to them whenever he visited the town during his labors in other fields ; 
came back among them to spend the last years of his life, and had a 
handsome stone erected over his grave by his life-long friends." 

The new comers of this year were as follows : — 

Francis Bacon, named "of Farmington," bought, August 21, 1789, 
a forty-one-acre lot between Harvey L. Andrews' and the Bragg house, 
on which he probably lived until 1794, when his name last appears on 
the tax list. He is named of Barkhamsted in 1798. 

John Bacon's name appears on the tax list of this year. He lived 
on a lot immediately south of the one owned by Francis Bacon, which 
came by inheritance to his wife, Sarah, from her father, Joseph Foot of 
Salisbury. They sold out in 1798, and left the town. He married, 
January 4, 1782, Sarah Foot. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sarah, b. July 31 , 1785. 

II. Abiah, (dau.) b. April 10, 1788. 

III. Laura, b. August 18, 1790. 



180 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

IV. John, b. November 7, 1792. 

V. Seth, b. December 8, 1794. 

VI. George, b. March 23, 1797. 

Levi Brownson 2d, son of Ozias, before referred to, this year 
purchased the first portion of his large farm, on which he afterwards 
lived until his death, October 16, 1846, in tbe red bouse on the Norfolk 
road, near the extreme northeast corner of Goshen. He was connected 
with his brothers Asahel and Isaac in trade, at tbe center, for several 
years early in this century. 

David Deer's name is on the tax list of this year, and is not found 
elsewhere. 

John Lucas, son of Thomas Lucas of Goshen, came from Norfolk to 
this town this year, and bought and occupied the Roswell Coe farm, 
subsequently owned by Amasa Wade, Jr., being lot 42, second division. 
He sold out and moved to Blanford, Mass., about 1 808, where he died 
three or four years later. For more than half of the last twenty years 
of his life he was so deranged as to need confinement. According to 
record of Deacon L. M. Norton he married Jerusha Coe of Torrington, 
and had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Eoxana, b. September 12, 1765; m. N Stanley Parmelee. 

II. Esther, b. July — , 1768 ; m. Thadeus Fay, and Ira Gleason. 

III. Jerusha, b. , 1770; m. Thomas Porter; d. 1837. 

IV. Thomas, b. April — , 1784; m. Hannah Turner. 

Deacon Levi Platt came from Danbury to this town when a boy, 
with Joseph Elmer, of whom he learned the blacksmith's trade. He was 
a schoolmaster in his early manhood. In 1790 he bought of Martin 
Hurlbut, land now composing, it is believed, part of the farm of Harvey 
Andrews, — on which he lived until about 1794, when he bought, and 
occupied during his remaining lile, the farm recently owned by his son, 
Sylvester Platt, Esq., now deceased. He died August 14, 1856, aged 91. 

Deacon Platt was a Puritan of the Puritans ; firm as the everlasting 
hills in his political and religious principles; and withal, a man of hum- 
ble, sincere piety, faithful to every duty as a father, a church member, 
and citizen of the town. He succeeded his father-in law, Eliphaz Alvord, 
as Town Clerk and Register, and as Deacon of the Congregational 
Church, and was a member of the Convention of 1818, which formed 
our State Constitution. 

His Pastor, Rev. Frederick Marsh, thus speaks of him in 1852: "This 
truly venerable and patriarchal man still lives among us. At the age of 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 181 

86 he enjoys good health, retains in an unusual degree his mental powers, 
reads much, and converses sensibly and interestingly. It is now 68 years 
since he joined the church by profession. In the education of bis family, 
in bis observance of the Sabbath, attendance on public worship, regard 
for the institutions and duties of religion, and general course of life, 
Deacon Piatt has been a striking representative of the Puritan character. 
He and his wife both united with the church before they were 19 years 
old, and six or seven of his children became hopefully pious before they 
were twenty-three years old." He m. Feb. 5, 1792, Esther Alvord, dau. 
Elipbaz, Esq. She d. March 28, 1840. He d. Aug. 14, 1856, aged 91. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abi, b. July 25, 1793; m. Jan. 7, 1850, Hiram Roycc of 

Norfolk. 
II. Eliphaz Alvord, b. May 3, 1796; d. May 7, 1807. 

III. Ezka Hart, b. Sept. 18, 1798. 

IV. Sylvester, b. May 17, 1800. 

V. Levi, b. April 11, 1802; m. Parmela R. Mungerj went to 

Colliasville, Conn., and thence to Hartford, where he now resides. 

VI. Lucy, b. Oct. 31, 1804; m. March 10, 1847, Hiram Royce of 
Norfolk. 

VII. Elizabeth, b. Sept. 19, 1806. 

VIII. Eliphaz Alvord, b. Feb. 6, ISO'J. 

IX. William, b. Dec. 16, 1816; d. Feb. 28, 1840. 



Sylvester Platt resided on the farm owned by his father, until 
some three years before his death ; he filled the office of Justice of the 
Peace and Town Representative, besides other minor stations, and died at 
Wiusted, Sept. 18, 1870. He m., Norfolk, Sept. 4, 1833, Mary, dau. of 
Wilcox Phelps. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Levi Wilcox, b. Aug. 27, 1834; d. Dec. 9, 1S44. 

II. Helen Rebecca, b. Sept. 6, 1837 ; d. Jan. 19, 1840. 
III. Edwin Sylvester, b. Sept. 30, 1839; m. Feb. 12, 1863, Elizabeth Brooks. 



Levi Platt, Jr., m. Pamelia R. Munger. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Helen Esther, b. Dec. 27, 1824. 
II. Ruthy Smith, b. Oct. 10, 1826. 

III. Elizabeth, b. Sept. 5, 1828. 

IV. Mary Jane, b. Aug. 22, 1831. 

Daniel Thompson, named of Wethersfield, in a deed of land to his 



1 2 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

wife, Hannah, lived on the Brooks street road, above the old Everitt house, 
until 1793. He m. Nov. 2, 1788, Roxy Smith. 



CHILDREN. 



I. Huldah, b. Nov. 15, 1790. 
II. Eoxalana, b. Sept. 20, 1791. 



1790. 

The matter of incorporating the Society of Winsted, as a Town, was 
again ventilated in Town Meeting this year ; and a vo;e of acquiescence 
was passed, in case the dividing line should run northerly along the res- 
ervation in the second tier, to Mad River, and thence, along the east line 
of the tier, to Colebrook. This line would cross the Pond Stream, near 
Hurlbut's Forge, thence diagonally, through Meadow Street, to Mad 
River, a little east of Dudley's Tannery, and thence along the Street Hill 
range, a division "not fit to be made." The General Assembly failed to 
pass the act of incorporation ; and it is believed that no petition has since 
been carried to the Legislature for a division of the town. No freemen 
were admitted this year. 

The Society of Winchester, being without a Pastor, devoted itself as- 
siduously to finding and settling a successor to Mr. Knapp. Fortunately 
they were spared the calamity of a succession of candidates, and the con- 
sequent dissensions growing out of divided preferences. Parish hunters 
were rare in those days ; for the supply of ministers was hardly equal to 
the demand ; and the salaries given, or promised, in the new towns, 
offered small inducements to the class of men caring more for the fleece 
than for the flock. 

It was the custom of those days for a vacant parish to apply to neigh- 
boring ministers for advice in the selection of a candidate for settlement, 
and to employ only such as were thus accredited. 

Fathers Mills of Torringford, and Robbins of Norfolk were repeatedly 
called in during the year, to help on and guide the church and society in 
wooing their new spouse. Early in January, Rev. Publius V. Booge 
(pronounced Bogue), a graduate of Yale, in the class of 1787, was 
applied to, "to preach with us on probation." This application was 
repeated in April, and Messrs. Robbins and Mills were invited to come 
and counsel with them on the 26th. On that day the society voted " to 
continue Mr. Publius Virgilius Booge to preach with us longer with a 
view for a settlement, if hereafter he and we should agree." Another 
very provident vote was passed at the same meeting in these words : 
" that the Committee be directed not to contract with Mr. Booge, unless 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 183 

he will agree to receive for his pay not more than one quarter part 
thereof in cash, and less, if the committee can agree with him to lake 
less, — and the remainder in the produce of our farms." 

June 21 and 25, it was voted, " to invite Mr. Booge, to preach with 
us four Sahbaths, after the time expires for which he is now engaged at 
New Cambridge." and "that the committee invite the inhabitants of the 
north part of Torrington " (the " Noppit," or " Newfield " people) " to 
apply, if they see cause, to the General Assembly to annex them to this 
society. 

September 1st, it was voted to give Mr. Booge a call, with a "settle- 
ment" of one hundred and fifty pounds, and a salary of seventy-five 
pounds a year. This vote was modified September 6th, so as to make the 
Settlement payable in three successive annual installments of fifty pounds 
each, — and to be payable in neat cattle, good merchantable shipping 
horses, and sheep, at current market prices ; — the settlement to be abso- 
lute in case he continued in the pastorate fifteen years ; — if not, then he 
was to refund ten pounds a year for such time as falls short of fifteen years ; 
— and that the salary should be paid, four-fifths of seventy pounds in farm 
produce, and one-fifth thereof in cash, — the remaining five pounds to 
be paid in wood at four shillings (G7 cents) a cord, in eight feet lengths, 
delivered at the parsonage. 

October 8th, Messrs. Bobbins and Mills were again called in to the 
meeting, and the proceedings of the two previous meetings were laid be- 
fore them for their advice thereon ; — after which a formal vote was taken 
to settle Mr. Booge according to the modified terms above. The result 
was, twenty-eight affirmative, five negative, and four "neuter" votes, it 
was then voted to send to the Association for advice and to desire Messrs. 
Robbins and Mills to write to Mr. Booge to meet a Committee of the So- 
ciety, and wait on the Association tor their advice. 

It was voted, October 21st, to accept the advice of the Association and 
that the Committee wait on Mr. Booge as quick as may be, and sec if lie 
is suited with the proposals, and ascertain what alteration, if any, he 
would choose. 

November 15, the terms of the settlement were so altered as to ex- 
clude horses, and stand for cattle and sheep only, — and that the time 
and mode of delivery should be made more specific. The farm products 
were specified to be Wheat, Bye, Indian Corn, ( bits, Flax, Beef, Pork, 
Tallow, Butter, and Cheese. The refunding of a portion of his settlement 
was to be contingent on his tailing to serve in this ministry fifteen years, 
by reason of death or otherwise, if lie be the blamable cause of separa- 
tion; — this question to be determined by a mutual council. 

November 30th, the several votes respecting settlement and salary, as 
amended and modified, were consolidated into one clear, formal vote, 



184 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

which was duly passed, and all former votes in reference thereto were re- 
considered, annulled and made void, — and the Committee were directed 
to lay before Mr. Booge the doings of the meeting. They were also di- 
rected to furnish Rev. Mr. Robbins with copies of the votes of the Church 
and Society, to be laid before the Examining Committee of the Associ- 
ation. 

December 27th, the provisions of the amended vote were so altered as 
to change the time of delivery of the farm products. — and so to change 
the wood contract as to make the supply twenty-five cords per year with- 
out reference to price; — and the Committee were directed to lay the 
newly amended vote before Mr. Booge, — and in case of his approval 
thereof, to invite him into the meeting to agree with them on a time for 
ordination. The result of these votes, and the conference with Mr. 
Booge were, that the 12th of January, 1791, was fixed on for the ordina- 
tion, and that the Consociation meet at the house of Major Brownson, and 
that he make provision for their entertainment. 

The ordination did not come off on the 12th of January, as voted ; 
probably by reason of Mr. Booge's hesitation to accede to the terms of 
settlement, so painfully and carefully elaborated. On that day it was 
voted " that the Committee wait on Mr. Booge and request his answer 
whether he will settle with us in the work of the ministry," — an adjourn- 
ment of half an hour, — and then another of eight minutes, — was had ; — 
after which the 26th of January was fixed for the ordination — a day of 
fasting and prayer was appointed for the 18th, and Rev. Messrs. Robbins 
and Mills were invited to attend; — Capt. Elmer was directed to make 
provision for the ordaining council, and Robert McCune Major Ozias 
Brownson. Levi Brownson, Esq. Alvord, Dr. Everitt, Richard Coit, Huitt 
Hills, John Nash, Jesse Hills, Capt. Wilcox and Andrew Everitt were ap- 
pointed to be tavern-keepers on the day of ordination. 

The Church records make up in brevity for the prolixity of the Society 
records of this event. They simply contain a vote passed November 30, 
1790, "to give Rev. Mr. Publius V. Booge a call to take the pastoral 
charge of this Church." 

No record of the ordination council, or of the exercises, is to be found ; 
— and it is impossible to ascertain whether the new meeting hou^e was 
so far completed as to be used for the occasion, or whether the exercises 
were in the old house. 

The conclusion naturally arrived at by inspecting the interminable 
proceedings of seventeen Society meetings from which we have quoted, is 
that the Society and its minister were keen at a bargain, and were de- 
termined to understand each other fully. The nature of the arrange- 
ments also shows the extreme scarcity of money, and the rigid economy 
necessarily practiced in those days. Long as the quotations are we trust 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 185 

they will interest the reader of the history of our little commonwealth, as 
an illustration of the customs of the times in regard to the hearing, calling, 
and settling of a life-long minister.* 

The only new comer of this year in Winchester seems to have been 
Isaac Skinner, named of Colchester in his deed of land from Martin 
Hurlbut. This land, on which he probably lived, is supposed to be now 
a part of the farm of Harvey Andrews ; but no conveyance of it by Mr. 
Skinner can be found. He is assessed on the list of 1795, and not after- 
ward. He married. November 1 1, 1790, Mary Saxton. 



CHILDREN. 



I. Mary, b. Oct. 20, 1791. 

II. Isaac, b. April 4, 1793. 

III. Alva, b. July 10, 1795. 



* We find among our papers, a memorandum of the names and length of the pas- 
torates of the ministers composing the council which ordained the Rev. Mr. Knapp, 
which was omitted in connection with that event. As showing the permanency of 
pastoral s-ettlements in the last century we here transcribe it. 

Dr. Joseph Bellamy, Bethlem, 1738 to 1789, 51 years. 

Rev. Nathaniel Roberts, Torrington, 

" Jonathan Lee, 

" Daniel Brinsmade, 

" Daniel Farrand, 

" Thomas Canfield, 

" Abel Newell, 

" Noah Benedict, 

" Jeremiah Day, 

" Ammi R. Robbins, 

" Asahel Hart, 

" Peter Starr, 



Torrington, 


1741 ' 


' 1776, 


35 


Salisbury, 


1743 ' 


' 1788, 


45 


Washington, 


1749 ' 


' 1793, 


44 


Canaan, 


1752 ' 


' 1803, 


51 


Roxbury, 


1744 " 


1795, 


51 


Goshen, 


1755 ' 


' 1781, 


26 


Woodbury, 


1760 ' 


' 1813, 


53 


New Preston, 


1770 ' 


' 1806, 


36 


Norfolk, 


1761 ' 


' 1813, 


52 


North Canaan, 


1770 ' 


' 1775, 


5 


Warren, 


1772 ' 


' 1829, 


57 


Total 


years, 




506 


ngth of pastorate, 




401 
H -6 



24 



CHAPTER XV. 

annals and records. 
1791 to 1801. 

The town records of this year are devoid of interest otherwise than as 
showing that the revolting system of bringing town paupers to the 
auction block was initiated by the following vote : — 

" Voted, that the selectmen be directed to take charge of Remembrance 
Filley, and conduct with him as they shall think most for his comfort, 
and will be least expensive to the town, whilst he remains in his present 
state of delirium, either to set him up at vendue to the person who will 
keep him the cheapest, or dispose of him in any other way which may 
appear to the selectmen more convenient, and for such time as they may 
think reasonable, and on the cost of the town." 

The record then states that " Ensign Bronson bid off Remembrance 
Filley at eight shillings per week, for two weeks, and at ten shillings for 
two weeks after," and " Samuel Wetmore second bid him off to keep him 
two weeks at ten shillings per week." In this case the step may have 
been necessary and justifiable, by reason of (he want of lunatic asylums 
at that early day. Another vote of the same meeting shows that the 
auctioning of paupers had not yet been fully adopted. It was voted 
" that Daniel Loomis take the oversight of building the house of 
Benjamin Preston, and inspect the labor done, and the stuff provided for 
said house, and make return to the selectmen." 

As a specimen of the economical spirit of the town we extract the 
following : — 

" Voted, to sell the two Congress Laws and Kirby's Reports. Ensign 
Coe bid off one Congress Law, at ten shillings. Samuel Wetmore second 
bid off second Congress Law, at six and ninepence. Hewitt Hill- bid off 
Kirby's Reports, at thirteen shillings." 

Adna Beach from Goshen, this year bought a farm on Blue Street, 
recently owned by Archibald Dayton, on which he lived until 1811, 
when he sold to Asahel Bronson, and removed to the farm on the old 



FAMILY RECORDS. 187 

Waterbury turnpike, Danbury Quarter, lately owned by John A. 
Bid well, where he died April 20, 1820, aged 63. He was a man of 
standing in tbe town, and executed many public trusts. His father, 
Adna, was son Of Deacon John Beach, one of the thirteen members of 
the Goshen Church, at its formation in 1740. His grandmother was 
Hannah Miles from Wallingford. He was born at Goshen, November 
10, 1757; married October 11, 1781, Mary, daughter of Captain 
Timothy Stanley of Goshen. She died September, 1837. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sally, b. June 4, 1783; m. Samuel H. Wctmorc. 

II. Horace V., b. September 10, 1784; studied medicine, and practised at 
Lexington, N Y. ; afterward at North Goshen, Conn., and in 1847 
removed to Memphis, Michigan. He m. Harriet A. Camp, and after 
her death he m. (2d) Huldah H. Bailey. He d. in Flint, Michigan. 
Children by first wife: I. Horace A. Children by second wife : 2. 
Cicero B., b. 1815; m. Semantha Bailey; she d. and he m. (2d) Zelia 
Chamberlain; 3 Albert Nelson, b. January 19, 1818; m. April 24, 
- 1844, Sarah Ann Trafford, b. Cornwall, September 25, 1825; lives in 
Winsted, and has children, Elizabeth Lucell, b. Canaan, October 19, 
1846; Delia Lucelia, b. C, August 18, 1848; d. October 11, 1850; 
4. Adna S., b. 1820; 5. Joseph M., b. 1822; 6. Harriet U., b. 1824; 
m. Royal Lewis ; 7. Sophronia, b. 1826 ; d. unmarried ; 8. Sarah, b. 
1S28 ; m. and d. ; 9. Mary, b. 1830, m. — Wedge. 

III. Polly, b. July 7, 1786 ; resided, unmarried, in Liberty, N. Y., in 1860. 

IV. Fiskb, b. March 26, 1788; owned and occupied the Edward Rugg farm, 

in Danbury Quarter, from 1814 to 1827, when he moved to Hunter 

N. Y. He m. February 24, 1814, Roxa, daughter of Captain Stephen 

Fyler of Torrington ; she d. and he m. (2d) Mrs. Pryor. He had 

children: 1. Frederick; 2. George; 3. Mark; 4. Charles; 5. James; 

6. Roxa, 
V. Hannah L., b. November 15, 1789 ; m. October 28, 1812, Harry Blake. 
VI. Adna, b. December 8, 1791; m. at Hunter, N.Y., Widow Abigail 

(Bailey) Showers. He moved iu 1826 to Hunter, N.Y., and afterward 

to Liberty, N.Y. 
VII. Sibyl, b January, 1794 ; m. September 16, 1814, John Lockwood 

of Hunter, N.Y, , and had children: 1. Harriet, m. Charles Beach; 2. 

Mary, m. Dr. Robinson; 3. Elizabeth, m. Alfred Green; 4. Horatio, 

and 5. John. 
VIII. Mabel, b. November 3, 1795; m. October 28, 1812, Deacon Allen 

Blake of Winchester. 
IX. Silas, b. November 11, 1797; m. Lovina Ford/ He moved to 

Hunter, N. Y., in 1826, and afterward to Liberty, N.Y. 

Rev. Publius V. Booge, the second pastor of the Winchester 
Church, bought in 1791 the lot on which he built the lean-to house, west 
of the center, on the Norfolk Road, now owned by Leonard Hurlbut. 
He sold to Hon. Phineas Miner, in 1799, and followed a large number 



188 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

of his parishioners to Vernon, N. Y. He married Catharine, daughter of 
Colonel Timothy Robinson of Middle Granville, Mass. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Decids Robinson, b. January 29, 1792. 

II. Huldah Mat, b. August 31, 1793. 

III. Timothy Lester, b. December 7, 1794. 

IV. Horace P., b. December 22, 1796. 
V. Sophia, bapt. June 12, 1799. 

Nathan Brown, named " of Winchester," this year bought a thirty- 
acre lot south of the Edward Rugg place, in Danbury Quarter, which he 
conveyed to Ambrose Palmer in 1792. 

Levi Coy married Anna, daughter of Ensign Daniel Andrews. He 
lived on the north side of Mad River, near the Danbury School-house, 
and sold out to Phineas Griswold in 1802. 

Silas Fyler bought land in Torrington, came to make a cleai'ing 
preparatory to moving his family, and while so engaged he lived with 
Chauncey Hills, where he was taken sick, and died April 12, 1779, aged 
69 years. He was born about 1710 ; son of Zerubabel and Rachel 
(Gillett) Fyler ; g. son of Zerubabel and Experience (Strong) Fyler, 
and g.g. son of Lieutenant Walter Fyler, one of the early settlers of 
Windsor, and Jane, his wife. He married about 1747, Catharine Drake, 
who was born about 1730. She settled, with her family, on the farm 
he was preparing in Torrington. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abi, b. 1748 ; m. 1782, Josiah Everitt. 

II. Catharine, b. 1750; married 1770, Samuel Rowley. 

III. Silas, b. 1752; in. Lucy Drake. 

IV. Jane, b. 1754; m. Ephraim Loomis [motber of Oliver]. 

V. Stephen, b. May 27, 1755; m. 1779, Polly Collier. He d. Tor., 

July 15, 1836. 
VI. John (twin), b. May 27, 1760 ; m. December 27, 1787, Esther Bacon. 
VII. Bethursda (twin), b. May 27, 1760; m. Asahel Bronson. 
VIII. Sabra, b. April 24, 1764 ; m. May 18, 1804, Juna North. 

IX Roman, b. August 12, 1769. 

Koman Fyler from Torrington, bought from Martin North, Jr., the 
Noble J. Everitt place, a third of a mile south of the Winchester 
Meeting-house. In 1794, in company with Reuben Mai-shall, he built 
the Washington Hatch house at the center, in the north wing of which 
they kept a country store, while Mr. Fyler kept a tavern in the body of 
the house. About 1800 he removed to Burke, Caledonia Co., Vt., where 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 189 

he resided during his remaining life. He was a prominent and influen- 
tial man of the town, and was a pioneer settler of Burke, to which a 
large number of families from this and the neighboring towns migrated 
with him. During his residence there he laid down the first aqueduct in 
Troy, N. Y., and ojiened the first road through l he White Mountains of 
New Hamp-hire, which became the thoroughfare of travel from Vermont 
to Boston. He married February 8, 1793, Hannah Barton, born April, 
1770; she died November 15, 1795, and he married (2d) .1797, Mrs. 
Sally (Bray) Lyman of Goshen. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Orsemus Roman, b. Nov. 4, 1793 ; d. unm. at Harlow Fyler's. 
II. Barton Nichols, b. Oct. 19, 1795 ; had a twin sister d. at birth. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

III. Alfred Bray, b. Jan. 17, 1799. 

IV. Horace R,, b. 1801. 
V. Marcus W., b. 1805. 

VI. Calvin, b. 1808. 

VII. Minerva, b. 1810; d. 1811. 

VIII. Carlton C, b. 1812. 



Theodore and Russell Goodwin, hatters, from Hartford, this 
year bought the homestead of Rev. Joshua Knapp, a mile east of the 
center near the intersection of the Easterly and Dugway roads. 

Theodore Goodwin sold his interest in this property to his brother 
Russell in 1795, and bought the Noble J. Everitt place, which he ex- 
changed in 1798 with Dr. Josiah Everitt for the old yellow store build- 
ing and lot, until recently occupied successively by Isaac Bionson, and 
Theron Bron?on, as a country store, and which has recently given place 
to the new store building of the latter. This one story building Mr. 
Goodwin occupied as a tavern and hatter's shop until 1809, when he 
removed to Granville, Mass., where he died at a good old age. He was 
a man of keen intellect and humor, whose sayings are often quoted by the 
old people of the town. He was Town Clerk and Register in 1798. He 
m. Nov. 11, 1792, Lucy Adams. She d. March 6, 1804, aged 31 ; and 
he m. (2d) June 24, 1805, Harriet Prior. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Laura, b. Nov. 23, 1793. 

II. Abigail, b. Sept. 11, 1796; d. June 26, 1810. 

III. Lucy, b. Apr. 11, 1800. 



190 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



BY SECOND WIFE. 

IV. Harriet Prior, b. Aug. 17, 1806. 

V. Sidney Wadsworth, b. April 13, 1809. 
VI. Theodore. 



Russell Goodwin removed in 1795 to a house on the east side of 
the Dugway road, now torn down, nearly opposite the junction of the 
East and West roads; and thence in 1808, to the old Thomas Spencer 
farm on the Sucker Brook road, next north of the Rufus M. Eggleston 
place, and resided in the old house, the chimney of which now remains 
standing, until about 1825, when he removed to Litchfield, Conn., where 
his son Leonard (now deceased) then resided. He too, was a humorist, 
enlivening every social circle which he entered, by his genial wit and 
hearty laughter. 

It is a singular coincidence, that both of these brothers, and their 
brother George, the venerable printer of Hartford, should have lived to 
the ordinary age allotted to man in religious indifference, and should at 
their extreme age have become humble and trusting followers of their 
Saviour, and exhibited undoubted evidence of their acceptance as his 
disciples. He m. Ruth Church; she d. in 1831. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Clarissa, m. Erastus Hurlbut; d. in Ohio, 1864. 

II. Leonard, m. Mary A. Galpin; he d. Sept., 183-. 

III. David Elmore, d. when less than ten years old. 

IV. Hepzibah, d. under ten years of age. 

V. Marana, m. Austin Fuller; d. Trenton, N. Y., 1828. 

VI. Philena, in. Philo Whitmore. 

VII. Hiram, m. Nancy Jones ; he d. Aurora, 111., Aug. — , 1864. 

VIII. Harrikt, m. Jesse Schovill. 

IX. Emily, m. Frederick McNeil. 

X. Hepzibah, m. Parker Sedgwick, living in 111., 1867. 
XI. David Elmore. 

XII. Jeremiah, b. Feb. 21, 1815 ; m. Mary D. Sedgwick. 

Zepheniah Hatch, 1 father of Capt. Moses, came from England, and 
settled in Wethersfield. He had 

children. 

I. Lucy 2 , b. May 6, 1752. 

II. Jerusha, 2 b. June 11, 1755. 

III. James, 2 b. Oct. 26, 1757. 

IV. Moses, 2 b. March 15, 1760. 
V. Mary, 2 b. April 13, 1762. 

VI. John, 2 b. Aug. 22, 1764. 



AND FAMILY KECORDS. 191 



VII. 


Simeon, 2 


b. Nov. 26, 1766. 


VIII. 


Samuel, 2 


b. Feb. 19, 1768. 


IX. 


Levi, 2 


b. Oct. 13, 1770. 


X. 


Esther, 2 


b. Sept. 10, 1772. 


XI. 


Elias, 2 


b. March 19, 1775. 


XII. 


Daniel, 2 


b. Aug. 26, 1778. 



Capt. Moses Hatch, 2 from Wethersfield, was for many years a sea 
captain, in the employ of Justus Riley, the Wethersfield merchant. 
Prior to this, at the age of sixteen, be enlisted into the Revolutionary 
Army, and served in various capacities during the war. In 1791, he 
removed to this town and took charge of a large tract of wild land, be- 
longing to Mr. Riley, at the south end of the Long Lake. He built the 
house which he occupied during his remaining life, some fifty rods south 
of the house of his son, Elias T. Hatch, on. a road now discontinued, 
leading from the center down to the Still River valley. He d. Dec. 21, 
1837, aged 77, a kind-hearted whole-souled man. He m., Wethersfield, 
Abigail Loveland, b. March 1G, 1763. She d. Winchester, Nov. 3, 
1850. ' 

CHILDREN. 

I. Levi L., 3 b. Dec. 13, 1785. 

II. Abigail, 3 b. Oct. 21, 1787. 

III. Polly, 3 b. April 5, 1790; d. Feb. 10, 1791. 

IV. Polly, 3 b. Nov. 4, 1792. 

V. Esther, 3 b. Feb. 7, 1795; m. May 8, 1829, Silas Crocker, Jr., 

of Vernon, N. Y. 
VI. Washington, 3 b. March 14, 1797; d. March, 1872. 

VII. Wm. Franklin, 3 b. March 4 1801; m. Sept. 28, 1832, Emeline Baldwin ; 
she d. Sept. 22, 1870, aged 62 years and 2 days. He m. (2d) Sept. 20, 
1871, Lizzie M. Eells ; lives in Winsted. 
VIII. Trumbull, 3 b. May 11, 1803 ; d. June I, 1807. 

IX. Elias T., 3 b. Oct. 6, 1805 ; m. Cornelia M. Footo, and lives at the 

south end of Long Lake. 
X. Lucy, 3 b. June 3. 1807. 

Simeon Hatch. 2 came to Winchester, with his brother Moses, and 
probably lived with him until about 1800, when he removed to Vernon, 
N. Y. 

Josiah Hull, from Hartford, a shingle splitter,- owned land on both 
sides of the Little Pond, from 1791 to 1794, and his name is found on 
the tax lists until 1804. 

The freemen admitted and sworn this year were John Spencer, Elijah 
Frisbee, Levi Brownson, Salmon Brownson, Silas Hurlbut, Roman Fy- 



192 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

ler, Jonathan Deer, Ezra Stannard, Elisha Hills, Peter Corbin, Jr., 
Noah Benedict, Zebina Smith, Chauncey Mills, Nathan Wheeler and 
Benjamin Wheeler. 



1792. 

In Town Meeting this year, the town tax was made payable in wheat, 
Indian corn, beef, pork, oats or flax, if delivered at the house of Captain 
Samuel Hurlbut, or the mill of Deacon Austin, by the first of May fol- 
lowing at prices to be set by the Selectmen. 

In Society Meeting, a tax of one penny on the pound was laid " to hire 
a Singing Master four months, to instruct in singing psalm tunes and an- 
thems." 

John B. Hall, of New Fairfield, became joint owner with Eliud 
Taylor, of the farm on Mad River adjoining Norfolk line in Danbury 
quarter, and half of the saw-mill afterwards owned by Micajah Hoyt, and 
now by Nelson Brooks. They sold out in 1796 to Deacon Hoyt, and 
Mr. Hall afterward left the town. In 1810 the Church voted him a let- 
ter of dismission to the Church in Durham, New York. He was grand- 
father to Hon. Highland Hall, late M. C. from Vermont. 

Eliud Tatlor, from Danbury, continued to reside in Danbury quar- 
ter until 1799, when he sold his dwelling-house and adjoining land to 
Luther Holcomb, being the premises recently owned by John J. Fanning. 
He afterwards lived from 1803 to 1806 in the Widow Leach house in the 
same vicinity. In 1807 the Winchester Church voted him a letter of dis- 
. mission to the Union Society Church in New Haven. By wife Mary, he 
had Polly, born January 25, 1794. 

Wait Hill, a blacksmith, was admitted a voter this year. In 1795 
he built the house on the Waterbury turnpike a little south of the center 
now owned and occupied by Luman Munsill. In 1797 he bought and 
lived in Winsted, on the Spencer street road, a house that stood near 
Widow Lucy Coe's dwelling, and worked in a shop long since burned down, 
which stood on Main street near the dwelling of Samuel W. Coe. He 
removed to Vernon, New York, in 1798, or 1799. He married, June 26, 
1794, Hannah Hills, of Winchester. 

The freemen admitted and sworn this year were Rev. Publius V. 
Booge, Jonathan Coe, 3d, Thomas Spencer, Jr., Harvey Marshall, Theo- 
dore Hoskin, Daniel Russell, Elisha Spencer, John Church, Samuel Clark, 
Truman Blackmail, Wait Hill, and Joseph Elmore, Jr. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 193 



1793. 

The records of Town and Society meetings this year are of little inter- 
est. Tt appears by the Society records that the interior of the new meet- 
ing house was not yet finished. 

Daniel Andrews, Jr., a native of the town, wliose record has been 
given already, came of age this year ; built and occupied through life the 
red house, at the parting of the Danbury school-house road from the 
Green Woods turnpike. 

William R. Case, from the Society of Wintonbury, now the town of 
Bloomfield, this year, bought and thereafter occupied until 1799, a lot of 
land now composing a part of the Harvey Andrews farm ; he returned to 
Wintonbury after 1810. He was born February 20, 1751 ; married 
Huldah Loomis, born December 12, 1756. He died November 29> 
1828. She died January 1, 1835. 

CHILDREN. 

I. William, b. Aug. 20, 1775 ; d. April 9, 1793. 
II. Huldah, b. Nov. 17, 1777 ; d. Aug. 16, 1800. * 

III. Abiah, b. Sept. 1,1779; m. OrentusBronson ; d. June 

20, 1836. 

IV. Ruth, b. April 4, 17S2; d. Sept. 27, 1853. 
V. Horace, b. July 5, 1784 ; d. Oct. 29, 1S23. 

VI. AsnER, b. Dec. 12, 17S6; m. Nov. 13, 1826, Charlotte Pettibone; he 

d. Sept. 7, 1858; had children George and Edward. 
VII. William, b. April 25, 1794 ; grad. Yale College 1821 ; Cong, minister 
at Chester, Ct. ; d. April 28, 1858. 
VIII. Chester, b. Sept. 20, 1796 ; d. in Penn., Oct. 2, 1857, a bachelor. 

Reuben Marshall, son of Thomas and Desire Marshall, born at 
Torrington, May 19, 1765 ; came to Winchester this or the preceding 
year, and became a trader in company with Roman Fyler. In 1810 he 
bought the farm near the center of the town, lately owned by Daniel 
Murray, now deceased, which he occupied until his removal to Granville, 
Mass , about 1811. During the last ten years of his residence here he was 
largely engaged in purchasing cheese for the Southern market. He mar- 
ried Widow Hills, of Torrington, who had a son Reuben, by her 
first husband, — and two or more daughters by Mr. Marshall, — one of 
whom, Orpha, married Patrick Boice, Esq., of Westfield, Massachusetts. 

John McAlpine, Jr., son of a Scotchman, is named " of Hartford " 

in Ills, first deed of land in Winchester. He was a joiner by trade, and a 

man of great industry and energy, — was a Selectman for many years, — 

and highly esteemed as a neighbor and citizen. He built, and occupied dur- 

25 



194 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

ing his remaining life, the house about sixty rods east of the center, now 
owned and occupied by his son, John McAlpine ; he married, May 16, 
1794, Margaret, daughter of Samuel Hurlbut, Esq. He died August 30, 
1850, aged 81. She died February 28, 1845, aged 72. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Silas Hurlbut, b. Sept. 2, 1794. 

II. Elizabeth Ann, b. Feb. 18, 1798; m. March 11, 1819, Horace Jay 
Humphrey. 
III. Samuel Aveht, b. Nov. 15,1802; m. ; d. 

he lived for many years in Penn., and after the death of his wife returned 
to Winchester ; m. (2d), May 15, 1845, Mary S. McAlpine, widow of his 
brother, Silas H. ; now lives in Winsted. 
IV. John, b. Nov. 1, 1805; m. Aug. 6, 1845, Harriet E. Wet- 

more, and has since resided on his father's homestead at the center ; she 
d. Dec.— , 1869, childless. 
V. Lemuel, b. Oct 21, 1808 ; a physician, lives in Illinois. 

Silas H. McAlpine, oldest son of John and Margaret, married, Jan. 
11, 1842, Mary S. Wetmore, and lived on the Waterbury turnpike, half 
a mile south of the center. He was a man of literary and scientific tastes, 
— a poetf and a warm philanthropist. Standing as he did in the front 
rank of the despised little band of early Abolitionists, it is fitting that his 
name should be identified with the once feeble, but now triumphant, cause 
which he advocated. He died childless, August 12, 1842. 

Solomon Wheadon, from Branford, owned and occupied until his 
death, the farm of Harvey Ford in Hall Meadow, adjoining Goshen line. 
He died December 12, 1814, aged 65. His wife Sarah died January 
10, 1821, aged 73. 

No record is found of the births of Mr. Wheaclon's children. The 
death of Lomisa, daughter of Solomon and Sarah Wheadon. Jan. 8, 
1799, and the marriage of Benjamin Wheadon, their son. to Deborah 
Merriman. April 21, 1803. are recorded. This Benjamin Wheadon is 
named " of Hudson, Portage County, Ohio," in a deed of January 28, 
1826, conveying his interest in land of Stephen Wheadon, deceased, by 
which it would appear that Stephen died childless, leaving a widow, not 
named, and sisters, Sally Wells, Mercy Bronson (wife of Salmon), 
Esther Pond, and heirs of Lucretia Griswold. 

Lucretia Griswold was the first wife of Roswell Griswold of Cole- 
brook, and the mother of Wyllys, Lucretia, and Hon. Hiram Griswold, 
formerly of Canton, Ohio. 

Deacon Stephkn Wheadon, son of Solomon, owned and occupied 
the paternal homestead until his death, December 2, 1824, aged 40. He 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 195 

was chosen Deacon of the Winchester Church in 1823. The family of 
Wheadons was held in high esteem in the community. His wife, Polly, 
was sister of Moses Drake, Jr., and afterwards married successively 
Deacon Humphrey of Goshen, and Deacon Rogers of Cornwall ; died in 
1867, a widow. 

Rufus Crane, from Killingworth, this year bought of David and 
Sarah Murray, a house and lot on the Dugway road, nearly opposite 
the Sophronia Leonard house, which he occupied until after 1796. 

John Joks is on the Winchester tax lists of 1793 and 1794. 

The freemen admitted this year were Daniel Marshall, Laurence 
Barber, and Levi Piatt. 

1794. 

The prices of labor in payment of highway taxes were this year 
established as follows : — 

For a man's work in May or June, three shillings and sixpence per day. 
" a man and team, " seven shillings " 

" a man in October or November, three shillings " 

" a man and team. " six shillings " 

The new comers of the year were a-; follows : — 

Major Lloyd Andrews, a joiner, from Meriden, purchased land 
in the town, November 20, 1794. He first lived, after his marriage, in 
the old homestead of his father-in-law, Ensign Jonathan Coe, in the 
south part of the society, since owned by Samuel Mills Munsill. About 
1799 he bought the farm now owned by his son, Harvey Andrews, and 
there resided until his death, October 23, 1833, aged 60, an unassuming, 
industrious, and worthy man. He was born in Meriden, February 10, 
1773; married May 16,1796, Huldah Coe. She died December 27, 
1866. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Orson, b. February 16, 1798 ; d. November 29, 1836, 
unmarried. 

II. Hiram, b. December 22, 1799 ; d. March 15, 1808. 

III. Huldah, b. January 8, 1802; d. September 8, 1808. 

IV. George, b. March 19, 1805 ; m. in New York. 

V. Samuel Lloyd, b. October 22, 1811 ; m. May 23, 1839, Sophia 

Case of Canton ; has a son Geo. L., who served as 1st Scrgt., Co. F., 
28th Regt. Conn. Volunteers. 
VI. Harvey, b. July 13, 1814; m. Susan (Merwin) Sage. 

VII. Helen. b. May 1, 1821 ; d. September 13, 1823. 

Francis Bacon owned from 1794 to 1798 a part of the farm now 



196 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

owned by Harvey Andrews. In his deed of sale of this land in 1705, he 
is named "of Barkhamsted." In 1795 he is named in a record of judg- 
ment as of Simsbury. 

David Beebe, " of Winchester," a blacksmith, this year bought a lot 
of land in the Jacklin neighborhood. In 1795 he bought a house and 
lot on Danbury Hill, northwest of William Price's, and there resided 
while he remained in town. In 1808 the Church in Winchester voted 
him and his wife a letter of dismission to the Church in Coventry, N. Y. 

Doctor Nathaniel Elmore is on the tax list of this year. He 
was a native of Sharon, a schoolmaster and physician. He lived in the 
town a few years, and then removed to Granville, Mass. He was father 
of Harvey B. Elmore, now of Winsted. 

Gillett Hinkley this year bought 38 acres of land, which now forms 
a part of the Harvey Andrews or Wm. H. Rood farm, which he sold in 
1801, and then moved to the West. 

Epaphras Loomis, married, Torrington, September 9, 1755, Mary 
Hills. They came to Winchester to live with their son Lorrain, about 
1809. He died September 10, 1812, aged 80; she died February 12, 
1813, aged 78. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Epaphras, b. March 31, 1756; m. December 1, 1777, Phebe Bacon. 

He d. in Hannibal, N. Y., in 1850. 
II. Remembrance, b. February 27, 1759 ; was taken prisoner by the British 
at Fort Washington in the Revolution ; was poisoned by the water, and 
d. January — , 1777. 

III. Jerdsha, b. February 6, 1761 ; m. Noadiah Bancroft; d. October, 

1827. 

IV. Lorrain, b. June 9, 1764. 

V. Wait, b. November 23, 1765. 

VL Arah, b. July 7, 1767. 

VII. Ira, b. September 14, 1770. 

Deacon Lorrain Loomis from Torrington, became a resident of 
Winchester this year. He bought the Truman Blackman farm and other 
lands, now composing the farm owned by the children of Asher Case, 
and built and lived in the house now occupied by them. About- 1818 he 
removed to Cornwall, and acted as steward of the Foreign Mission 
School during its continuance there, after which he returned to his old 
homestead in Winchester. Pecuniary losses came upon him in later life. 
He gave up all his property to his creditors, and worked as a farm 
laborer for several years, paying his earnings to his creditors, until the 
larger part of their claims were satisfied. Age and infirmities compelled 
him to relinquish his cherished design of paying in full, out of his hard 
earnings, the balance of his indebtedness. 



AND FAMILY RECOEDS. 197 

In his later years, until his death, he lived with his son, Nelson T. 
Loomis, on the Richard Coit place, near the south end of the Brooks 
road. He died July 7, 1857, at the age of ninety-three years and six 
months. 

Winchester has had hundreds of men richer in worldly goods and 
popular talents, but probably not one combining in so high a degree all 
the qualities of a good man and humble Christian. He was the loved 
schoolmaster of a large portion of the youth of the town from 1788 to 
1810. The writer of these annals remembers him as his first male 
teacher, with an affection accorded to no other. With the sick he was 
ever the welcome visitor and kind watcher ; with the afflicted, the 
sympathizer and consoler ; in the Church an example of faith and good 
works ; in the world, a humble follower of Him who went about doing 
good. He married Abigail Rainsford of New Marlboro,' Mass. ; she 
died August 26, 1832, ao;ed Go. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lophelia, b. July, 1790; d. January, 1791. 

II. Doreance, b. September, 1792; d. March, 1793. 

III. Nelson T., b. March, 1799; m. November, 1827, Abigail Hills of 

Goshen. He lived near the parting of Brooks str et and the Norfolk, 
road. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Sarah L., b. January, 1829. 

2. Frederick L., b. August, 1834. 

IV. Edward R., b. August, 1806 ; lives in Napiersville, Illinois. 

Orange Mott, son of Adam, is on the tax list of this and the follow- 
ing year. In 1798 he is described in a deed as of Bridge water, 
Herkimer Co., N. Y. 

Daniel Wells, probably from West Hartford, a tanner, bought a 
quarter acre lot west of the Booge Parsonage, on the Norfolk road, on 
which he built a tannery, and two years after built, on the opposite side 
of the road, the dwelling house since .owned by Sage W. Grant. In 
1798, he sold out to Asahel Wells, and removed to Augusta, Oneida 
Co., N. Y. 

Ekastus Thrall, son of Reuben, was admitted a voter this year, 
and soon after went into trade at the center, buying dairies and 
other farm products, and exchanging them for goods in the New York 
market and elsewhere. He is said to have gone with his products 
to the West Indies, and brought home his sugar, molasses, etc., for home 
trade. He was a young man of fine person and address, active and fast. 
He ran through his business in 1798, — left the town, — and died soon 



198 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

after in prison, before his trial, on a charge of forgery, of which he was 
believed to be innocent. He died unmarried. 

The freemen admitted and sworn this year were Erastus Thrall, 
Theophilus Andrews, Benjamin Benedict, Jr., Jedediah Coe, Caleb 
Mutison, Abijah Benedict, and Abiel Loomis. 



1795. 

In special Town Meeting, April 27 of this year, the following vote 
was passed : '■ That this meeting disapprove of the appropriation of the 
avails of the Western Lands, belonging to this state, as passed in the 
Honorable Upper House of Assembly, in October last." 

This vote probably refers to the project, well nigh carried out, to appro- 
priate the proceeds of the lands in Ohio, reserved by Connecticut in her 
cession to the general government, to the support of the churches of the 
standing order. The measure, after passing the Upper House, sitting 
with closed doors, was resisted in the Lower House, and after a severe 
struggle of the friends of common schools with the adherents of the 
clergy, was defeated ; and the lands were subsequently appropriated to 
the endowment of our School Fund. They were eventually sold to the 
Connecticut Land Company for one million two hundred thousand dollars, 
and constituted the basis of the splendid endowment from which our com- 
mon schools have ever since been mainly supported. 

It is doubted by many, whether our common schools have been really 
benefited by this gratuitous aid, which, while it relieves the people in a 
great measure of the burden of educating the children, at the same 
time makes them careless as to the management of the schools, sustained 
without their immediate contributions. The fact is unquestionable, that 
our common schools have fallen far behind those of some of the neigh- 
boring states with smaller endowments, in the efficiency of their manage- 
ment, and the results of good education. But whatever may have been 
the effect on our common schools, no one can doubt that a diversion of 
this fund to the support of our churches, would have deadened whatever 
of vital piety then existed ; and it is creditable to the fathers of our town 
that they set their faces against the measure. 

A vote of the society this year, giving permission to other denomina- 
tions of Christians to use the new meeting house, now completed, on any 
days when not wanted by the church or society, indicates a catholic 
spirit. 

Roger Coe (see 1765) son of Ensign Jonathan, this year became 
the owner of his father's homestead in the south part of the society, — 



AND FAMILY EE CORDS. 199 

his father removing to Winsted. He lived here from his birth to the 
year 1857 or 1858, when he came to Winsted with his adopted son, Rev. 
James R. Coe, third son of his brother Daniel. He was for many years 
a prominent citizen of the town, which he represented in ths Legislatures 
of 1814 and 1815, and was much employed in town affairs. He m. 
March 5, 1797, Anna Higley-; she d. June 26, 1857. He d. Winsted, 
Jan. 14, 1859, aged 84 years ; s. p. 

Joshua Beach, son of Joel, came of age this year, and is entered on 
the Tax List a? a resident of the society. 

William Crocker's name is on the Tax List of this year. He 
came from New London County; and in 1799 bought the farm in Dan- 
bury Quarter now partly owned by John J. Fanning, on which he lived 
until about 1825, and then removed to Vernon. N. Y. He m. Dec. 20, 
1796, Deborah, daughter of Timothy Benedict, b. Aug. 29, 1774; she d.. 
Sept. 18, 1823 ; they had a son, Silas, and perhaps other children. Silas 
removed, at or about the same time, with his father, to Vernon, N. Y. 
His wife's name was Mary Breen. They had a son, Lemuel, born in 
Winchester, June 27, 1825. The father (Joseph) and two brothers 
(Joseph and James) of William Crocker, became inhabitants of the town 
after 1800, and all of them died here. 

Phineas, Jr., and Matthew Griswold, sons of Phineas of Win- 
chester, are on the Tax List of this year. Matthew removed to Vernon, 
N. Y., before 1800. Phineas was of Beaver Dam. Erie Co., Penn., 
in 1822. 

/ Luther Holcomb, from Danbury, came into the town this year, and 
in 1797, bought the farm in Danbury Quarter, on the east side of Brooks 
street, not far south of Mad River, which he owned and occupied until 
1803. His name disappears from the Records after 1804. He was said 
to be the same Luther Holcomb mentioned in Barber's Historical Collec- 
tions, who brought the British Army of 3,000 men to a dead halt on its 
march through Bethel to Danbury in 1777. By wife Joanna, he had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Friend Ransley, b. Oct. 1, 1795. 
II. Lloyd Holmes, b. July 27, 1797. 



Levi Marshall owned land on the North and West side of Little 
Pond, and lived in the Daniel Beckley house until his removal to Ver- 
non, N. Y., in 1799. 



200 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Loami Mott, son of Adam, Jr., of Winchester, is on the tax list of 
this and the following years to 1801. In 1797 he bought and lived in a 
house on Sucker Brook, below the Dugway road, near the Hubbell Saw 
Mill. In 1803 he is named of Stockhridge, Mass. ; and at a later day he 
removed to Vernon, N. Y. He married April 18, 1795, Polly, daughter 
of Samuel Clark, of W. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Merritt, b. at Winchester, Jan. 3, 1796. 

II. Willard, b. " June 28, 1800. 

III. Lodema, b. at Stockbridge, Mass., Feb. 3, 1803. 

Daniel Phelps, from East Windsor, purchased, with Horace Higley, 
the Artemas Rowley farm in the southeast part of the Society, on which 
he lived until 1809. He afterwards lived in the house on the west side 
of Brooks Street next south of the old Everitt place. He was a sedate 
man, — highly esteemed, and often employed in town affairs. He repre- 
sented the town in the Assembly in 1818 and 1828. He died March 19, 
1850, aged 83. His wife, Huldah, died March 4, 1839, aged 70 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Daniel, bap. in E. Windsor, Nov. 3, 1793. 

II. Huldah, bap. " " " " " 

III. Benjamin, bap. " " Aug. 2, 1795; he lived in Danhury quar- 

ter near the Everitt place until his death, July 12, 1849, aged 54 ;.he m. 
Feb. 16, 1826, Abigail Brooks, of W. 

IV. Frederick, b. Winchester, June 30, 1795; m. May 22, 1S26, Lucy W. 

Hurlbut, and moved to Valatie, N. Y. 
V. A son (not named), b. July 14, 1S03; d. Sept. 7, 1803. 
VI. Jonathan, b. March 17, 1805; d. July 1, 1822. 

Danikl Phelps, Jr., married, April 18, 1816, Lucy Hurlbut, daugh- 
ter of Stephen, and lived in Winchester until after 1826, when he re- 
moved to Norfolk, and after 1840 to Wellington, Ohio, where lie died not 
far from 1860. His first wife died in Ohio, and he there married a second 
wife. He seems to have owned no real estate in Winchester. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Louisa Abigail, b. March 13, 1817. 

II. James Whiting, b. April 4, 1819. 
III. Joseph, b. March 26, 1821. 

John Chester Riley, from Goshen, came to 'Winchester this year 
and, in company with Seth Holmes, commenced trade as a country mer- 
chant in a house south of Jonathan Blake's, near the center. In 1800 he 
bought of Eyler and Marshall the Washington Hatch place at the center, 
where he traded and kept a tavern. In 1807 he built a store at the 
parting of the Old Country road and the Waterbury turnpike, in which he 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 201 

did an extensive business until his failure in 1816. Being a Jeffersonian in 
politics, while most of the traders of his day and vicinity were of the Feder 
al School, he drew in to a large extent the trade of those of his own faith in 
this and the neighboring towns. After his failure, he was confined on the 
jail limits at Litchfield for a considerable time, and continued to reside 
there during his remaining life. He lived a bachelor until past middle age, 
and married at Litchfield. 

Seth Holmes, from Torrington, came to Winchester with John C. 
Riley this year, and for one or two years they were partners, under the 
firm name of Holmes & Riley. He lived while in town on the discon- 
tinued road west of Waterbury turnpike, near the site of the first meeting 
house. He removed to Vernon, - New York, prior to 1802. His wife's 
name was Phebe. 

Ezra Holmes was " of Winchester " in 1801, and probably became a 
resident earlier. In 1802 Seth and Phebe Holmes conveyed to him their 
late homestead ahove described. Three years after he bought the Luman 
Munsill place, a little south of the center, which he sold in 1807, and 
thereafter owned and lived on a farm two miles north of the center on 
the Danbury burying-ground road, which he sold in 1809 to Birdsey 
Norton, of Goshen. He is last on the tax list in 1810, and probably that 
year removed to Ohio. By wife, Grace, he had 

CHILDREN. 
I. Polly, b. Oct. 21, 1801. II. Daniel, b. Aug. 27, 1804. 

Silas Taylor, from Danbury, owned and lived in the shingled house 
that stood until about 1860 on Taylor's Brook, at the junction of the old 
highway south from R. M. Eggleston's, with the new road from the cen- 
ter by Elias T. Hatch's. He died April 24, 1819, aged 67. He had 
sons, Clark, who died January 22, 1826, leaving a widow, and Ira, who 
lived on his lands until 1827. He had also a daughter, Clarissa, married, 
November 28, 1816, Alva Hyde, of Oxford, or Guilford, Chenango Coun- 
ty, New York. 

Doctor Truman S. Wetmore, 4 whose record has been given, ap- 
pears on the tax list of this year. 

Reuben Tucker, Jr.. a native of this town, is on the tax lists of this 
and the two succeeding years. He is named of Elmore, Vermont, in a 
deed dated in 1814. 

Miles Wilkinson, son of Jesse, born in this town, is on the tax lists 
of this and the following years. He married, December 2, 1796, Lydia 
Ives. 

26 



202 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The tax list shows that there were four licensed taverns in the town 
this year, to wit : Samuel Hurlbut, in the house that stood at the center 
on the site now occupied by the house of Samuel Hurlbut ; John Miner, 
in the house between Winsted and Winchester, lately owned by Mrs. Al- 
mira Coe ; Zerah Doolittle, in the old Pea-e House that stood where 
North Main street now runs, nearly in front of the house of Isaac B. 
"Woodruff, in Winsted, and Freedom Wright, in the Kelsey house, lately 
burned down, near the small pond on the Old North Country road. 

The freemen admitted and sworn were Abijah Bronson, Leonard Hurl- 
but, Nathan Elmoi'e, and Zaccheus Munsill. 



1796. 

The town records of this year refer only to routine business ; no free- 
men were admitted. 

In Society meeting, a " Pall or Funeral Cloth " was ordered to be pur- 
chased and to be kept at the house of Doctor Everitt, when not in use. 

A committee was appointed with instructions to contract for the finish- 
ing off of the interior of the new meeting house, and, if no offer could be 
obtained more favorable than that of Deacon Dutton, of Watertown, then 
to contract with him. 

By the records of the following year it appears that the work was 
done, so as to require the appointment of " seaters " to assign to the par- 
ishioners their respective pews and seats. 

This edifice stood near the center of the triangular green nearly south 
of the dwelling of Theron Bronson. It was nearly square, with a steep 
roof, — the gables, with a round window in each, facing east and west, 
and without a tower or steeple, and in all respects conforming to the 
principles of country church architecture of that period. The pulpit 
stood in the north, with an alley extending to the south door ; another 
alley from the east to the west doors, gave access to the gallery stairs 
and wall pews. The pews were square with paneled sides, surmounted 
with low banisters. The galleries occupied the three sides of the interior 
in front and at the right and left of the pulpit. The altar had a folding 
leaf which was dropped down when not in use; — an unfortunate ar- 
rangement, as it proved, when, some forty years ago, a self opinionated 
and partially deranged parishioner conceived himself divinely commis- 
sioned to testify against the corruptions of the Church, and took an oppor- 
tunity to do so by presenting himself at the altar at the close of the com- 
munion service, and reading the history of the Saviour's overturning 
the tables of the money changers in the temple ; — and suiting his 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 203 

action to the words, knocked away the support of the leaf, and scattered 
the sacred elements and contribution box on the floor. The culprit was 
tried for this outrage before two Justices of the Peace, who decided that 
he was crazy ; but lest an acquittal on that ground should embolden him 
to commit other acts of the same nature, they found him guilty and im- 
posed a fine. 

The pulpit had the usual decorations of vines and clusters of grapes 
carved in wood, in humble imitation of the gorgeous adornments of the 
Jewish Sanctuary, and an imposing sounding-board set into the wall 
above. 

Here worshipped the fathers and mothers of the town and their off- 
spring, for about fifty years, a race of honest, hard-working, selt-denying, 
pious, rigid Puritans. The like of Deacons Samuel Wetniore, Seth 
Hills, Robert McEwen, Eliphaz Alvord, Lorrain Loomis, and Levi 
Piatt, to say nothing of other worthies, who here dispensed the symbolic 
bread of life, and digested the severe doctrines of the Calvinistic creed, 
is not to be found in these days of diluted orthodoxy. 

Roger Barber, a blacksmith, plied his trade in the shop vacated by 
Wait Hills, until 1798, when he gave way to William Bunell, and' went 
to Sandisfield, Mass. 

Ephraim Bowers is on the tax list of this and the following year. 

Levi Daw is on the tax list of this and the following years until 
1804. He married August 1, 1790, Phebe, daughter of Benjamin 
Benedict of W. 

William Gray, a Scotchman by birth, and a shoemaker by trade, 
owned and occupied a part of the Nathan Tibball's farm in Danbury 
Quarter, until 1799. 

Sylvester Hall, a millwright, is on the tax list of this year. He 
married May 12, 1797, Lucy, daughter of Captain Samuel Hurlbut, and 
probably thereafter lived with his father-in-law, until his removal to 
Burke, Caledonia Co., Vermont, about 1803, where he resided until his 
death. 

Their children, as appears by the Probate Records of Winchester, 
were_ : — 

I. A Daughter, who married — Lawton. 
II. IIuldah, . " — Bcmis. 

III. Electra, " — Trull. 

IV. David, a resident of Virginia. 

V. Eliza, who married — Bemis. 



204 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

VI. Silas, residing in Winchester. 

VII. Harris B , died in Vermont. 
VIII. A Son, who died leaving two sons, Elbridge and Sylvester. 

Nathaniel Hoyt from Danbury, owned and lived on land in Dan- 
bury Quarter, between the farm late of John J. Fanning and Mad 
River. In 1811 the Church voted him and Lucretia his wife a letter of 
dismission to the Church in Locke, N. Y., where they then resided. 

Deacon Micajah Hoyt, son of Nathaniel, owned and lived on the 
farm in Danbury Quarter now owned by Harry Brooks, until 1844, 
when he removed, as is believed, to Locke, N. Y. He was chosen 
Deacon of the Winchester Church in 1825. He was born December 12, 
1770; married November 1, 1792, Esther Trowbridge, born October 
22, 1773. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Eliakim D., b. May 16, 1794. 
II. DiLiA, b. October 4, 1796 ; m. November 27, 1814, Robert Andrews 

of Danbury. 

III. James T., . b. December 27, 1793. 

IV. Orpiia, b. May 3, 1801 ; married — Curtice of Vernon, N. Y. 

V. Sidney, b. April 2, 1804 ; m. October 9, 1828, Huldah A. Starkwether. 

They settled in Barton, Tioga Co., N. Y. Children : Harriet, Julia, 
Louisa, a son, name not known, and Delia. 
VI. Loruhama (fern.), b. January 16, 1806; m. November 6, 1832, Charles 
Dunning of Whitehall, N. Y. 
VII. Ansel, b. October 31, 1809. 

VIII. Maria, b. October 31, 1812. 

Zeri W. Hoyt, son of Nathaniel, lived successively on the Jacklin 
farm in Danbury Quarter, next on the Norfolk Road, a little west of the 
Doctor Wetmore place, then on Lake Street, in Winsted, and last in a 
house near John W. Fanning. He left the town after 1803. 

Nathaniel Hoyt, Jr., lived on a part of the John W. Fanning farm, 
in Danbury Quarter, from 1799 to 1802. He afterwards lived not far 
from the old Everitt house in the same quarter, until 1810. In 1816 
the Church voted him a letter to the Church in Litchfield, Conn., where 
he then resided. 

George Kingsbury is assessed on the list of this year for his 
faculty as attorney-at-law, being the first legal luminary that shed its 
light on this benighted town. His stay seems to have been as brief as a 
comet's visit, there being no other note of him extant, save a record of 
trial before Justice Alvord, on a grand juror's complaint, setting forth 
that " Daniel Ward and George Kingsbury did, at Winchester, on the 



AND FAMILY EECORDS. 205 

27th day of July, 1796, in a tumultuous and offensive manner disturb and 
break the peace, by quarrelling, beating, and striking each other," &c. 
Kingsbury pleaded not guilty, but failed to sustain his plea, and was 
fined one dollar and costs. "Ward had been before the Court so often, as 
Sabbath-breaker, hard swearer, &c, that he thought it wisest to admit 
his guilt, and was fined two dollars, he probably having fought hardest, 
or been most blamable. It is to be regretted that our new juris consult 
had not left this kind of pastime to Ward and his next door neighbor, 
Coit, who were well matched and thoroughly trained to wordy objurga- 
tions by years of practice. 

David Strong, named of Charlotte, Vt., is on the tax list of this 
year. He was born in Torrington, May 31, 1768, son of Asahel ; mar- 
ried August 28, 1794, Esther, daughter of Reuben Miner of Winchester, 
and lived in a house long since torn down, which adjoined the house of 
his father-in-law, now owned by Joel G. Griswold and wife, at the 
geographical center of the town. About 1808 he removed to New 
Pultz, Ulster Co., N. Y., where he died. He had a son, George D. 
Strong, who was for many years a liquor dealer, prominent poliiician, 
and alderman of the City of New York. Another son, Edwin M., was 
adopted by his grandfather Miner, who left him his homestead, on 
which he lived until about 1836, when he removed to East New York, 
on Long Island, where he died after 1850. 

Edwin M. Strong, born July 25, 1795; married September 18, 
1816, Deidamia Grant of Norfolk. 

CHILD. 
I. George Washington, b. February 7, 1818. 

Elijah Starkavkthcu, son of Thomas of East Windsor, born 
January 7, 1777 ; married January 21, 1802, Anna Jerusha, daughter of 
Deacon Samuel Wetmore of Winchester, and received a conveyance of 
his homestead, and lived in a house that stood between the houses of 
Abel S. Wetmore and Widow Allen Blake, until about 1816, when he 
built a house on the Waterbury River turnpike, about a mile north 
of the center, in which he died December 8, 1819. His children have 
abbreviated the family name to - l Starks." 

CHILDREN. 

I. Jerusha Ann, b. November 12, 1802; m. October 31, 1822. Sheldon 

Miller. 
II. Laura Hills, b. October 26, 1804 ; d. October 26, 1805. 

III. IIuldah Andrews, b. August 28, 1806 ; m. October 9, 1828, Sidney 
Hoyt of Winchester. 



206 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

I\ Jdlia Maria, b. January 6, 1809; m. May lO, 1841, Samuel W. 

Coe of Winstcd. 
V. Samuel Wetmoke, b. August 31, 1812 ; m. May 8, 1839, Flora, daughter 
of Daniel Murray. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Jane Flora, b. March 18, 1840. 

2. Darwin Samuel,* b. August 24, 1843. 

3. Huldah Annie, b. December 11, 1846. 

4. Hattie Murray, b. March 30, 1856. 

VI. Sybil Anderson, b. May 14, 1815; m. May 14, 1845, Amos E. Hull of 
Tolland, Mass. 
VII. Frederick Elijah, b. November 21, 1819. 



1797. 

The notable event of this year was the success of the Jeffersonian or 
Democratic party, in electing a majority of the Selectmen, and in dis- 
placing our excellent town clerk. The violent party feelings and dissen- 
tions of that day have long been forgotten ; but the changed ap- 
pearance of the records by the substitution of the scrawny hand writing 
of the new town clerk for the clear and precise hand of Squire Alvord, 
marks a period of change, but not of improvement. 

It is easy to find causes for the growth of Democracy in the forced col- 
lections by the " Standing Order " of parish dues from disaffected and 
dissenting members ; the frequent prosecutions for profane swearing, sab- 
bath breaking, and especially for playing in meeting, not only against young 
men and boys, but frequently against young women of respectable fami- 
lies, — all go to show that the reins of civil power were held pretty taut 
by our worthy old Federal grandfathers, and warrant the conclusion that 
moral suasion was imperfectly applied for the correction of social evils. 
That the Demociatic ascendency at this time lasted but one year, goes to 
show that the conservative element was yet too strong to be effectually 
put down. 

The Society records show that by change of prices of provisions, and 
lax payment of dues, Mr. Booge's salary had become inadequate for his 
support ; in consequence of which a vote was passed adding fifty dollars 
to his salary, and increasing his allowance of firewood to thirty cords a 
year. It was also provided that notes of the society, on interest, should 
be given him from year to year for such arrearage of salary as should be 
found due him. Another wise provision was adopted by which the wood 



* The above-named Darwin S. Starks was a private in Company E, 2d Conn. 
Heavy Artillery, and died in the service, at Alexandria, August 16, 1863. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 207 

contract was taken by some responsible individual, at a fixed price. The 
contract was taken this year by Col. Brownson, at three shillings a cord. 
The sweeping of the meeting house for the year was also undertaken by 
Col. Brownson at three dollars. 

Eli Frisbik, son of Joseph, this year bought land near Torrington 
line on the third tier road, which he sold in 1799, and soon after removed 
to Vernon, N. Y. He m. April 17, 1794, Sarah Hills; had dau. Lucia, 
b. Sept. 1, 1794 

Clark McEwen, son of Samuel, is on the tax list of this year. He 
removed with his father to Vernon, N. Y. 

Stephen Gaylord owned a house and land near where the two 
chimney school-house stood, at the parting of the third tier road from the 
old country road, which he sold in 1806. He m. May 12, 1797, Mary 
Rhodes. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sally, b. Nov. 11, 1797. 
II. Anson,, b. July 30, 1799; d. May 18, 1803. 

The assessment of Trades and Professions this year, were Josiah Ev- 
eritt and Joseph B. Elmore, Physicians, in Old Society. 

Fyler & Marshall and Holmes & Riley, Traders, « 

Samuel Hurlbut, Tavern keeper, " 

Lloyd Andrews and John McAlpine, Joiners, " 

Roger Barber, Blacksmith, " 

Amasa Wade and Daniel Wells, Tanners and Shoemakers, " 
Isaac Wheeler and Freedom Wright, Taverners, in Winsted. 

Hine Clemmons and Wait Hills, Blacksmiths, 
Jenkins & Boyd, Scythe Makers, " 

Asher Loomis, Tanner, " 

John Sweet and Chauncey Mills, Millers, " 

The freemen admitted and sworn, were Daniel Corbin, Thaddeus 
Loomis, Daniel Wells, Sylvester Hall, Asahel Bi'onson, Asher Loomis, 
Eli Frisbie, Israel Douglass, Roger Coe, Amos Tolles, Seth Lucas, and 
Daniel Eggleston, Jr. 

1798. 

Inoculation for small pox was regulated this year, by vote in town 
meeting, " that Doctors or other men may have liberty to carry on inoc- 



208 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

ulation for the small pox in this town, from the 20th of February to 
April 10th, under such regulations as shall be agreed on by the Civil 
Authority and Select Men ; provided they shall give a Bond of One 
thousand Pounds, with sufficient surety, to carry on the business in such 
a prudent manner as not to expose any inhabitant of the town to said 
disorder, and to be continued at the houses heretofore occupied, and 
within the same limits." The location of the " pest houses," as they were 
called in Winchester Society, is not known. In Winsted, a house was 
built for this purpose, near the large spring on the old Pratt Road, which 
was used for a time, and afterward the farm house of Mrs. J. P. Boyd on 
East Lake Street was appropriated to that purpose. The head and foot 
stones of the graves of several persons who died of the disease, at the 
latter place, are still standing in an adjoining field. 

The Pest Houses, remote from other dwellings, were established by 
the civil authorities, who prescribed certain limits around them, within 
which the patients should confine themselves, and all other persons not 
authorized to enter, were excluded therefrom by fines and penalties. 

John Bissell, supposed from Litchfield, succeeded Fyler & Mar- 
shall as a trader, and continued in town but one year. The last record 
found of him is a complaint of the Grand Jurors and Tithing Man 
against him, dated May 9, 1799, for unnecessarily and unlawfully travel- 
ing on the Sabbath, to which he pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of $2.50, 
and costs. 

Elijah Blake, a native of Middletown, came to Torrington in early 
life, and removed thence to Winchester, in February of this year. He 
was by trade a tanner, and lived and died in the house afterwards occupied 
by his son-in-law, Samuel Hurlbut, 2d. He d. Oct. 2, 1833, aged 77. He 
m. Sept. 27, 1779. Sarah Hamlin, of Middletown, who d. Oct. 27, 1811, 
aged 53. 

CHILDREN. 

Tor., Dec. 12, 17S0; d. June 17, 1798. 
" Sept, 15, 1782; m. Feb. 2, 1803, Timothy Loomis, 

of Riga, N. Y. 
" June 26, 178-1. 
" Aug. 13, 1786. 
" June 29, 1788; m. Oct. 28, 1812, Hannah, dan. of 

Adna Beach. 
" Aug. 1, 1790; m. March 17, 1812, Wealthy, dau. of 

Benj. Benedict. 
" May 19, 1792 ; m. July 9, 1817, Mabel, dau. of Adna 

Beach. 
" Dec. 16, 1794; unmarried. 
" Oct. 18, 1797 ; d. Sept. 21, 1805. 
b. Winchester, Oct. 16, 1799; m. Samuel Hurlbut, 2d, of W. 



I. 


Sally, 


b. 


II. 


Polly, 


b. 


III. 


Elijah, 


b. 


IV. 


Jonathan, 


b. 


V. 


Harry, 


b. 


VI. 


Ithuel, 


b. 


VII. 


Allen, 


b. 


VIII. 


Sally, 


b. 


IX. 


Maria, 


b. 


X. 


Lovina, 


b. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 209 

Elijah Blake, Jr., m. Amelia Bronson, dau. of Benoni, and early re- 
moved to Springfield, Mass., where he still resides. He had four sons 
and two daughters. Both of the daughters are dead. The son-;, William 
and Charles, are in trade in Boston, and Marshall and Hamlin, in New 
York. 

Jonathan Blake, Esq., resided during bis married life on the east side 
of the old Waterbury River turnpike, in the first house south of its part- 
ing from the Old Country road at the center. He was for some years a 
Justice of the Peace, and represented the town in the General Assembly 
in 1851. He married, May 12, 1808, Sabra Bronson. He died May 14, 
1868, aged 81 years and 9 months. She died March 30, 1870, aged 86. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Infant Son, d. Aug. 19, 1809. 
II. Infant Daughter, d. Nov. 30, 1810. 

III. Marcia, b. Pub. 13, 1812; m. Jan. 24, 1845, Silas B. Crocker, of Ver- 

non, N. Y. 

IV. Mart Ann, b. Jan. 17, 1814 ; ra. Sept. 8, 1835, Lorenzo Mitchell, of Col- 

linsvillc; be d. Sept, 17, 1838, aged 26. Their son, Ward Blake, d. 
July 31, 1837, aged 1 year and 1 montb. 
V. Charles Hamlin, b. Oct. 17, 1817; m. May 11, 1842, Jane, daughter of 
James C. Cleveland. 

CHILDREN. 

1. James Cleveland, b. Feb. 9, 1S47 ; d. Jan. 24, 1848. 

2. James Cleveland, b. July 12, 1849. 

3. Lorenzo Mitchell, b. April 26, 1851. 
VI. A Son, b. ; d. Feb. 17, 1822. 

Harry Blake, lived for twenty years or more on the west side of the 
north and south road in the third tier, in the second house south of the 
Duo-way. He moved to New Britain about 1^67, where he soon died. 
He married Oct. 28, 1812, Hannah Beach, daughter of Adna. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Sarah Hamlin (twin), b. July 21, 1813 ; m. Aug. 12, 1S47, Giles L. Gay- 
lord, of Tor. 
II. Mary Stanley (twin), b. July 21, 1813; m. Dec. 17, 1851, John Moore; 
d. Aug. 5, 1854. 

III. Rev. Henry Beach, b. May 20, 1817 ; graduate of Williams College and 

East Windsor Theological Institute. He settled in the ministry at 
South Coventry, 1845 ; afterwards in Belchertown, Mass., and now lives 
in Newbern, N. C. He m. Sept. 23, 1845, Mary R., daughter of Harvey 
Wokott, of West Springfield. He delivered the historical sermon at the 
Cen'ennial Celebration, in Winchester, Aug. 16, 1871. 

IV. Lucius Doddridge, b. Sept. 9, 1819 ; m. March 29, 1843, Susan Griswold, 

resides in W. Hartford. 
27 



210 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

V. Hannah H. (twin), b. May 6, 1824. 

VI. Harriet H. (twin), b. May C, 1824 ; d. April 4, 1825. 

VII. George, b. April 16, 1826; m. Julj 8, 1856, Lucy Case; lives 
at Indiantown, Iowa. 

VIII. Dea. Elijah F., b. May 22, 1830; m. May 1, 1856, Julia M., daughter 
of Jared Clark. 

IX. Hubert, b. Aug. 31, 1832 ; d. June 18, 1841. 

Ithuel Blake, removed in 1818 to Coventry, N. Y. He has for 
many years been deacon of a church in that place. He married, March 
17, 1812, Wealthy, daughter of Benjamin Benedict, and had ten children. 

Deacon Allen Blake lived at the parting of the road running 
north by Abel S. Wetmore's from the Old Country road, until his death, 
March 10, 1850, aged 58. He succeeded his father in the tanning busi- 
ness, which he carried on in the tannery on the stream southeast of his 
dwelling. He was Deacon of the first Congregational Church for several 
years before his death. He married, July 9, 1817, Mabel Beach, daugh- 
ter of Adna. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hervet Vincent, b. June 29, 1818; m. Nov. 20, 1844, Catherine E. 

Caul ; she d. July 13, 1845, aged 24. 
II. Maria Elizabeth, b. April 16, 1822 ; m. Hopkins Barber. 

III. Samuel A., d. Dec. 6, 1847, aged 23. 

IV. Celia C, m. Denison Lambert; d. Sept. 7, 1849, aged 23. 
V. Louisa, d. Nov. 16, 1851, aged 18. 

Capt. William Bunnell, this year, succeeded Roger Barber as 
blacksmith at the center. He resided in the house at the parting of the 
Norfolk road and the old Waterbury turnpike, west of Theron Bronson's 
store, until his death, July 27, 1820, aged 46. 

Ciiauncey Humphrey, a native of Simsbury, came from Torrington this 
year, and first lived on the Deacon Seth Hills place near Torrington line. 
In 1802 he bought the Jonathan Blake place, and built a tinner's shop at 
the south parting of the Old Country and Waterbury River roads. In 
this shop he afterwards went into trade in partnership with the Samuel 
Hurlbuts, Senior and Junior. From 1810 to 1813 he kept tavern in the 
yellow store building recently torn down, that stood in front of the new 
store of Theron Bronson. During the war of 1812 he was connected 
with the introduction of British goods to the States from Canada, a 
quantity of which were seized at Hartford, as smuggled, thereby reducing 
him to poverty. He removed to Ohio in 1816. He was a man of great 
activity, — of fine personal appearance and address, — and filled a large 
space in the society where he lived. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 211 

Asaiiel Wklls, from Farmington (now Bloomfield), a tanner, this 
year bought from Daniel Wells, the house west of the center, recently 
owned by Sage W. Grant, and the tannery on the north side of the road, 
a little west of the old parsonage, now owned by Leonard 13. Hurlbut, 
which he occupied until 1807, when he returned to Farmington. He 
afterward removed to Winsted and lived some three or four years on the 
hill road to Colebrook, near David N. Beardsley's, and again left the 
town. He married, January 27, 1799, Mine Loomis, daughter of 
Ichabod. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Aliniira, b. Nov. 1, 1799. 

II. Sibyl, b. Jan. 25, 1801 ; d. May 3, 1807. 

III. Asahel Harlow, b Feb. 16, 1805. 

The freemen admitted and sworn were Benjamin Whiting, Jr., Giles 
Russell, Asahel Wells, Vine Utley, Phineas Miner, Timothy Benedict, 
Jr., Benjamin Wheadon, Ichabod Loomis, Benjamin Carter, Chauncey 
Hills, William Crocker, John Miner, Jr., Miles Wilkinson, and John 
Alvord. 

1799. 

The Winsted settlement had this year assumed such proportions, as to 
induce a vote of the town " that the Select men be directed to appoint 
one third of the town meetings to be holden at the house of Horace Hig- 
ley during the pleasure of the town." 

The opening of the Green Woods turnpike, this year, from New Hart- 
ford to Sheffield, Massachusetts, by a new and more direct route, avoiding 
as far as practicable the high hills, and following the course of the streams 
diverted all the long travel from the old north road over Wallen's hill 
and the old south road through old Winchester. 

The only new comer of the year was 

John Beecher, "of Cheshire," who bought a house and lot on the 
Brooks street road next north of Nelson T. Loomis, which he owned un- 
til 1807, when the Church granted him a letter of dismission to the 
Church in Waterbury. 

1800. 

The town votes of 1800 present no matters of special interest. Joseph 
Preston, Jr., had died, leaving it to the towns of Torrington and Win- 
chester to decide by litigation, which of the towns was liable for his sup- 
port while living, — anl a committee was appointed to compromise the 
litigation or bring it to a final issue. The two towns had aLo a boundary 



212 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

question which Major "Wetmore was appointed to settle. Phineas Miner, 
Esq., was directed to oppose, or stave off, the appointment by the County 
Court of a committee to lay a road from Winsted to Colebrook ; — and 
rams were prohibited running at large from August to November. 

The Republican, or Jeffersonian party, was again in the ascendant this 
year in the election of Town Officers. The veteran 'Squire Alvord, how- 
ever, breasted the storm and was re-elected Town Clerk. A three per 
cent, highway tax was laid. The tax for town expenses, — other than 
roads, — was five mills on the dollar, which, if fully collected, would have 
raised $171.94. 

The Society records of the year mainly relate to the dismission of Rev. 
Mr. Booge from his pastoral charge, on his own application, concurred in 
by the Church and Society, which was ratified by Revs. Robbins of Nor- 
folk, Gillett of Torrington, and Mills of Torringford. 

The following notice of Mr. Booge we extract, by permission of its 
author, from the mamiscript account of the Winchester Church, which Rev. 
Frederick Marsh furnished to the Connecticut Historical Society : 

" Mr. Booge was born in the parish of Northington, now the town of 
Avon, March 30, 1764. His father was a clergyman, and died in 
Northington when his son was about two years and ten months old. Me 
continued under the care of his mother until fourteen years old. Though 
a good reader, his education at this time was very limited. He then 
began to act for himself, and after laboring a short time on a farm, he 
entered the American Army, as substitute for an older brother. He 
served principally at West Point. When about 18, he became anxious 
to know what he should do to be saved. His convictions issued in 

hopeful conversion His mind was thus turned to the Gospel 

Ministry, and after struggling with various difficulties, he entered Yale 
College at 19, and graduated in 1787. He became the pastor of this 
Church, January 26, 1791. His dismission took place March 20, 1800, 
much to the regret of his people. He was licensed to preach the Gospel 
by Springfield Association, at Feeding Hills, Mass. After preaching a 
while at East Granville, Mass., then at Cornwall, Ct., he came to this 
place. About the time of his settlement here, he was married to 
Catharine Robinson, daughter of Colonel Timothy Robinson, of Gran- 
ville, Mass. The leading cause of Mr. B.'s dismission from here was the 
failure of his health, and a strong conviction on his own mind that it was 
necessary to remove to a new country. Soon after his dismission, Mr. 
B. removed to Vernon, Oneida Co., N. Y. After preaching in that 
county about two years, as his health would permit, he removed to 
Georgia, Vt. After having the charge of that people eleven years, 
enjoying the satisfaction of seeing his labors blessed to the hopeful con- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 213 

version of many souls, he took the pastoral charge of a congregation in 
Paris, Oneida Co., N. Y., called Union Society. Here he labored twelve 
years, happily and successfully, enjoying several interesting revivals. 
While enjoying peace, and the prospect of spending the remnant of his 
ministerial life with that people, a young man of Hamilton College, 
professedly very good, was the means of such difficulties among his people 
as led to his dismission. 

" Mr. B. was several times employed as a missionary by different 
societies, and aided in forming many churches. He was able in council, 
and often employed in aiding others with his advice, much respected and 
beloved. He died suddenly in Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y., in his own 
dwelling, August 28, 1836, aged 73 years, and five months after the death 
of his wife. He exercised his ministry about forty-four years. 

" Most of the above account of Mr. B. is taken from a letter of his son, 
Rev. Horace P. Booge of Vernon Village, N. Y. 

"Mr. B. was in person above the middle stature of men, handsome, had 
a good countenance, pleasant voice, and an unusually prepossessing 
appearance. As a preacher he was very acceptable and edifying. 

'• The kindest feelings appear ever to have existed between him and 
his people. His repeated visits and preaching since my settlement here 
were apparently very acceptable and pleasant to the people, and gratify- 
ing to himself. His surviving parishioners still remember him with 
interest." 

The Church applied to the dismissing council for advice in reference 
to a successor of Mr. Booge, and Rev. Archibald Bassett, a graduate of 
Yale College, in the class of 1796, was soon employed as a candidate, 
and continued his ministrations as such through the year. 

The electors admitted this year were Selah Hart, Loammi Mott, 
James Boyd, Ezra Andrews, Daniel Andrews, Jr., Levi Andrews, 
Benjamin Jenkins, Merritt Bull, Ezra Doolittle, and Roswell Marshall. 

Benjamin Wheadon, supposed to be son of Solomon, of Winchester, 
is this year certified as equipped for military duty, November 5, 18U7 ; 
the Church voted him a letter to the Church in Hudson, O. 

Eliakim Benedict, son of Benjamin, Senior, and a native of the 
town, came of age in 1799, and is this year certified as equipped for 
military duty. He married November 29, 1798, Anna Beebe. 

Lent Mott, Jr., son of Lent, of Winchester, and native of the town, 
was this year certified as equipped for military duty. He seems to have 
had no permanent residence, though he probably died in the town. He 
married November 16, 1798, Lucy Ives. 



214 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

CHILDREN. 

I. Laura, I). November 17, 1799. 

II. Alma, b. April 28, 1800. 

III. Jerusha, b. October 28, 1801. 

IV. Lucy, 1). August 2, 1803. 

V. Josiah, b. March 28, 1805. 

Silliman Hubbell came from Danbury to Winchester in 1800, 
and bought the house and lot on the south side of Cooper-lane, or 
Norfolk Road, about one-third of a mile westerly of the center, now 
owned by his grandson, Andrew E. Hubbell, in which he resided until 
his death, July 27, 1847, aged 83. He was one of the last and best 
esteemed humorists who abounded in Old Winchester at the close of the 
last century. His descent from his immigrant ancestor was in the follow- 
ing line: — 

Richard Hubbell, 1 Senr., from England in 1647, to Fairfield in 

1664. 
Samuel, 2 son of Richard. 

Jeptha, 3 son of Samuel ; married Sarah Brindle or Brintnell. 
Silliman, 4 their son, who married 1st, April, 1787, Hannah Taylor, 

daughter of Timothy Taylor of Bethel, who died January 

12, 1814; 2d, Nov., 1815, Polly, daughter of Wm. Cham- 

berlin, who died s. p. May 6, 1864. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Ciiloe, 5 b. January 25, 1788 ; m. 1814, Norris Coe. He died s. p., 

June 25, 1866. 
II. Ammon, 5 b. April 15, 1790; m. ; died s. p., August 8, 1823. 

III. Polly, 5 b. January 17, 1792; in. April 18, 1819, Ira Dexter. She 

died March 25, 1856. 

IV. Ira, 5 b. October 10, 1794; m. (1), Irene Strong; (2), — Hart; 

(3), Urania Patton. Children by first wife: 1. Henry ; 2. Mary 6 ; 
3, Laura. By second wife : 1. Silliman J.°. 
V. Luman, 5 b. August 28, 1797. 

VI. Andrew, 5 b. January 17, 1800; m. November 16, 1826, Marian 

Kogers. He died s. p., Charleston, S. C, September 14, 1827. 
VII. McPherson, 5 b. August 24, 1803; m. September 27, 1830, Minerva 
Seymour. 
VIII. Anna, 5 b. March 8, 1806; d. April 20, 1807. 

IX. Lyman, 5 b. February 18, 1808; d. unmarried April 19, 1833. 

X. Silliman, 5 b. February 7, 1810; d. September 30, 1826. 

Luman Hubbell, 6 son of Silliman, 4 married 1st, June 22, 1831, Jane 
Munro Boyd, daughter of James and Mary (Munro) Boyd. She died 
January 8, 1836, aged 22; 2d, Oct. 7, 1837, Henrietta, daughter of Benj. 
Jenkins. 







£7^~d^7 




c^£c^C 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 215 



CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Andrew Lyman, 6 b. March 5, 1834; m. September 10, 1857, Martha 
W. Woodworth of Great Barrington, Mass., b. April 15, 1836. 
II. James Boyd, b. March 18, 1836; m. September 9, 1858, Katie 

Amelia Tew, b. December 17, 1836. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Louis Boyd, 7 b. Mankato, Minnesota, July 5, 1859. 

2. Grace, 7 b. Mankato, July 11, 1860. 

3. Henrietta May, 7 b. Winnebago Indian Agency, May 11, 1862. 

4. James Boyd, 7 b. Mankato, December 22, 1866. 

5. Andrew Lyman, 7 b. Mankato, October 8, 1870. 

CHILD BY SECOND WIFE. 

III. Luman Silliman, b. May 24, 1844; residing in 1872 at Mankato, Min., 
unmarried. 

Josiah Cowles lived near Colebrook line on the Jacklin road, from 
1800 to about 1805. 

Augustus Humphrey, last from Torringford, this year bought of 
Elisha Wilcoxson the William Johnson farm, above the Dugway, on the 
old Winsted and Winchester road, where he lived until 1810, when he 
sold to Abiel Loomis, and left the town. 



1800. 

Caleb Beach, son of Joel, and grandson of Caleb, the first settler of 
the town, is on the tax list this year, and spent his life in the town ; his 
residence not ascertained. He died March 10, 1851, aged 72. He 
married June 25, 1797, Sarah Blakesley. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, b. July 3, 1798 ; d. December 2, 1804. 

II. Jonathan, b. November 19, 1799. 

III. William, b. January 5, 1802. 

IV. Seba, b. January 8, 1804. 
V. Caleb, b. January 6, 1806. 

VI. Susanna Serepta, b. December 10, 1807. 

VII. Hkzekiaii, b. July 13, 1810. 

VIII. Sarah, b. July 31, 1812. 

IX. Julia, b. April 25, 1815. 

X. Phebe, b. May 26, 1817. 

XI. Clarissa, b. June 2, 1819 ; m. December 31, 1837, Major Thorp 
of Barkhamsted. 

Araii Loomts, son of Epaphras, lived from 1800 until his death 
(September 10, 1844, aged 77), in the house now occupied by Samuel 



216 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



W. Starks, on the road turning west above the Dugway, and leading to 
the center. He married May 15, 1799, Margaret Loorais. She died 
September 28, 1841, aged 69. 



I. Harriet, 
II. Mary, 

III. Harry, 

IV. Abigail, 
V. Ruby, 

VI. Harriett, 

VII. Lucy (twin), 

VIII. Lury (twin), 



CHILDREN. 

b. February 4, 1800 ; d. March 10, 1807. 

b. January 27, 1802. 

b. March 14, 1803 ; d. March 26, 1803. 

b. May 9, 1804. 

b. April 27, 1806. 

b. March 16, 1808. 

b. February 5, 1810. 

b. February 5, 1810. 



Isaac Wilcox, Jr., from Simsbury, in 1799 bought a house and land 
near Colebrook line, in third tier, third division, near Richard Slocum's. 
which he conveyed to Luther Phelps by a deed in which he is named 
" of Pompey, Onondaga Co., N. Y." He is assessed this year as a 
resident of the town. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

EARLY SCHOOLS. 

We have found scant materials for a history of the rise and progress 
of schools, and have made no mention of them hitherto in our Annals, 
preferring to bring together all that we have learned of their history and 
condition in a separate chapter. The first recorded action in reference 
to schools is found under date of December 17, 1773, the year of Rev. 
Mr. Knapp's settlement ; it was voted " to raise two pence on the pound 
of the rateable estate for the support of schools in this [1st] Society." 
It was also voted that the north district begin at the house now owned 
by Medad Hills, and contain all the north part" (of the society), ''that 
the west district contain all the inhabitants on the west road from the 
crotch of the paths and all west," and " the east district to contain all the 
rest of the Society ;" " that the money raised by the tax be divided 
according to the list, and that Warham Gibbs, Reuben Thrall, Ebenezer 
Preston, Seth Hills, Oliver Coe, Samuel McCune, Benjamin Benedict, 
Abram Andrews, and Daniel Piatt be school committee ;" " that money 
[raised ?] in each district be laid out in each district as shall best 
accommodate the same, if it shall be laid out in the year ; if not laid out 
in the year, to be returned to the society treasury." 

The foregoing votes promised an excellent provision for the educa- 
tional interests of a community that as yet had only paths instead of 
roads by which to define the limits of its school districts. But unfortu- 
nately at an adjourned meeting, January G, 1774, it was voted " to 
reconsider all the votes that have been passed in this meeting concerning 
schooling." Here the matter rested, so far as taxation and the organiza- 
tion of school districts was concerned, until December 2, 1777, when it 
was voted "to raise two pence on the pound on last August list, to sup- 
port schools," and Deacon Seth Hills, Ensign Ozias Brownson, Philip 
Priest, Eliphaz Alvord, Captain Gibbs, Phineas Griswold, Lieutenant 
Benedict, and Eleazer Smith were appointed school committee. 

Whatever may have been done pursuant to these votes, there is no 
record of their repeal, and at the annual meeting in 177S similar votes 
were renewed, and a rate of sixpence on the pound was granted, and a 
collector in each district appointed to collect the same. 
28 



218 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

We have no means of ascertaining when or where the first school 
houses were erected, or what teachers were employed, or for what length 
of time ; but we have reason to suppose that schools were first opened in 
private houses by voluntary associations, and that these were aided, but 
not wholly sustained, by taxation. 

The next action appears on the society records in 1786, when a new 
school district was organized, " beginning at Torrington line, by a stream 
called the Branch, and to extend up said Branch so far as that an east 
line will include Captain Elmer [now Widow Norris Coe], from thence 
down y e country road, including Doctor Everitt [now Theron Bronson], 
John Nash, and all on the north side of said country road, and to include 
Phinehas Griswold's, from thence south to Torrington line," and Jonathan 
Coe and Levi Browrson were appointed district committee. Thi^ 
description is not very definite, but probably is intended to designate the 
district which built about this time the " Two-Chimney School House " 
that stood, until burned down, in a southeast direction from the burying- 
ground. 

In 1788, on the petition of Eliphaz Alvord, and others, another dis- 
trict, to be called the Second District, was organized, beginning on Long 
Lake, at the mouth of Sucker Brook, and extending up said brook to 
the north end of the third tier, first division (near, the Dugway school 
house), then to the northwest corner of the tier, then southerly along its 
west line to the southwest corner of Gershom McCune, Jr. (late Sylvester 
Piatt's) lot, thence easterly along his south line, direct to Long Lake, 
and thence northerly along the shore thereof to the mouth of Sucker 
Brook. 

In January, 1790, we find the following appointment of district school 
committees : — 

Samuel Clark, who lived in the Daniel Murray house, for the north- 
east district, which embraced the east part of Danbury Quarter, and 
extended south to Mr. Clark's. 

Andrew Everitt, who lived in the old Everitt house, for the north- 
west district, embracing the principal part of Danbury Quarter. 

Amasa Wade, for the southwest district, embracing the territory west 
of Branch Brook, nearly as far north as the Norfolk road. 

Captain Joseph Elmore, for the southeast district, embracing the 
center and the southern portion of the society, tying west of Branch 
Brook, and southwest of Sucker Brook. 

Captain Elisha Wilcoxson, who lived in the William Johnson house, 
for the second or Sucker Brook District. 

In 1708, by vote of the town, a new district was established, partly 
out of Winchester Society, and partly out of W'insted Society, the 
boundaries of which were directed to be placed on file in the Town 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 210 

Clerk's Office, but as no such file is to be found, its limits cannot be 
ascertained. It probably embraced the northern half of the present 
Sucker Brook district, and extended easterly to the Austin Mill, or Mad 
River, in Winsted. The committee were — Deacon David Austin, Levi 
Norton, and John Miner. 

In 1792 another district was formed, embracing essentially the terri- 
tory of the present West Winsted district, ther then being no village in 
existence, all the inhabitants living on the Coe and Spencer street roads 
to Colebrook, the two roads there diverging from the original school 
house, which stood on the site of the present West Winsted school house, 
and was burned down about 1S0S or 1809. 

In the records of Winsted Society, under date of December 27, 1784, 
we find a vote that the districts set off for schooling by a committee 
chosen for that purpose be established according to their doings, but no 
record of the districts so established is to be found. October 5, 1785, a 
tax of '' one penny halfpenny" on she pound was laid for the "use of 
schooling," but was reconsidered and annulled at an adjourned mi eting 
on the 26th of the same month. December 8, 1788, Ebenezer Rowley, 
and Ensign Eleazer Kellogg were appointed school committee. No 
further reference to school matters is found until December 8, 171) 4, 
when it was voted to divide the society into school districts, and a com- 
mittee was appointed for that purpose, who reported January 12, 1795. 
The report was accepted and placed on file, but not recorded, and the 
file is not to be found. 

In the foregoing minutes and extracts we have collated all of the 
essential doings of the town, and of the two societies prior to the act of 
General Assembly, May Session, 1795, which appropriated the interest 
of the proceeds of the western reserve lands to the support of schools in 
the several societies constituted, or which should thereafter be constituted 
b) law, and requiring such societies to hold distinctive meetings, as school 
societies separate from their meetings for ecclesiastieal purposes. This 
act left the ecclesiastical societies as it found them in respect to their 
religious functions, but invested them with new and distinct powers as 
school societies, so that persons qualified to vote "on school matters might 
be disqualified as voters in ecclesiastical matters. As a consequence, the 
meetings and officers of each had a distinctive character, and distinctive 
records were kept. 

Little of detail is known in respect to the schools supported in the dis- 
tricts prior to the act of 1795. We know, however, that several school- 
houses were 'built in the old society, and that they swarmed with pupils. 
We know, too, that good teachers were employed, and that the mass of 



220 ANNALS OF WINCHESTEK, 

the people were well instructed in all the branches of common school 
education. 

We have before us some of the early reminiscences of a lady,* born in 
1786, which illustrate the school customs and mental culture at the period 
referred to, from which we extract her notice " of the great day of exam- 
inations and exhibitions, when eight district schools assembled in the 
large, unfinished meeting-house in the winter of 1793-4. 

"The reading and spelling of the schools occupied the forenoon, and the 
afternoon was devoted to dramas, comedies, orations, etc. One corner of 
the church was enclosed in curtains, and each school took its turn behind 
the scenes to prepare for their special exhibitions on the stage. 

" The late Deacon Levi Piatt was the teacher of the school to which I 
belonged. Well do I remember the directions given by him to the little 
girls, as to dressing their hair for exhibition, viz : The night previous, 
our mothers were to wet our heads with home-brewed beer, and our hair 
was to be combed and braided very tightly before going to bed. In the 
morning, the last thing after we were dressed for the exhibition, the braids 
were taken out, and the hair lay in waving lines all over our shoulders. 

"Among the variety of things he taught us, was the practice of spell- 
ing a whole sentence, all together, or more particularly the first class. 
The sentence to be publicly spelled, was : 'Abominable Bumble Bee, with 
his Tail cut off'; but Mr. Piatt thought best to shorten it to 'Abomina- 
ble tail cut off. ' " 

" Imagine, if you can, in soberness, a large, thoroughly trained school- 
class, spelling, or chanting, before the assembled families of the town, in 
this wise : 



A — there's your A. 

B-0 — there's your Bo, and your A-bo. 

M-I — there's your Mi, and your Bo-mi, and your A-bo-mi. 

N-A — there's your Na, and your Mi-na, and your Bo-mi-na, 

and your A-bo-mi-na. 
" ' B-L-E — there's your Ble, and your Na-ble, and your Mi-na-ble, 

and your Bo -mi-na-ble, and your A-bo-mi-na-b!e. 
" ' T-A-I-L — there's your Tail, and your Ble-tail, and your Na-ble- 
tail, and your Mi-na-ble-tail, and your Bo-rni-na- 
ble-tail, and your A-bo-mi nable-tail. 
" ' C-U-T — there's your Cut, and your Tail-cut, and your Ble- 
tail-cut, and your Na-ble-tail-cut, and your Bo mi- 
na-ble-tail-cut, and your A-bo-mi-na-ble-tail-cut. 

* Mrs. Nelly M. Swift, daughter of Dr. Josiah Everitt. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 221 

« ' O-F-F — there's your Off, and your Cut-off, and your Tail-cut- 
off, and your Ble-tail-cut-off, and your Na-ble-tail- 
cut-off, and your Mi-na -ble-tail-cut-off, and your 
Bo-mi-na-ble-tail-cut-off, and your A-bo-mi-na- 
ble — tail — cut — off. ' 

"In the afternoon, each school had its oration, poem, dialogue, comedy 
or tragedy. One of our dialogues was called 'Old Gibber,' in which 
the late Abel McEwen, D.D., of New London, took the part of Old Gib- 
ber ; his wife was Charity Bronson. Oliver Marshall, Sethi Hills, Jo- 
seph Coit, and myself, had parts. 

"First Scene. — Old Gibber and wife talking about the war — wife 
stirring the hasty pudding — daughter Betty (myself) setting the table — 
John, the son, just home from the war, etc. 

"Another scene is a bar-room, with sink talk as we may suppose would 
take place there during the war of the Revolution. 

"The boys of this period were remarkable for their successful imita- 
tions of every kind of business. 

"The late Samuel Ilurlbut, Senior, was Justice of the Peace. Samuel 
Stanley (son of Dr. Everitt's third wife, who died young), was a lawyer, 
also Sylvester Griswold. Lemuel Ilurlbut was constable, etc. Mock 
Courts were held in my father's lung kitchen. Writs, attachments, and 
executions were all made out in due form. A statute book of laws was 
compiled, specifying a great variety of things contrary to law, for which 
culprits would be arrested, tried, and punished by imprisonment for so 
many hours, etc., etc. Witnesses were summoned, examined, cross- 
examined, and impeached, etc. 

"A newspaper was edited and published weekly by Samuel Stanley, 
before mentioned. It was ruled in columns, had editorials, news, anec- 
dotes, advertisements, etc. These boys, at that time, were none of them 
over twelve years old ! " 

These glimpses of the common schools of that early day, before any 
School Fund existed, and of their results in stimulating the mental activ- 
ity of the youth, seem almost incredible. 

In tins connection, a sketch of the first " General Training" in Win- 
chester, by the same lady, seems appropriate. 

"Up to this time (about 1793) the ' Green,' in front of the Meeting 
House, was ornamented with quite a number of chestnut stumps, winch 
were then split down and drawn out piecemeal, by teams and chains, the 
holes were filled up and levelled, all the fences in every direction were 
removed, and the tables for dinner were set in my father's orchard. Nev- 



222 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

er shall I forget the array of ladies in silks, satins, damasks, and change- 
able lustrings, of all colors, as they stood in a regular mass, directly 
•opposite our house, on the other side of the road, for it was a new thing, 
and all the towns near contributed largely to this display of female 
beauty and rich dresses. Jt should be recollected that these robes were 
not worn every day, or even once a week, as they are now, and were of a 
far richer material than those flaunted by modern butterfly-belles. Every 
officer, and every soldier brought his wife, bis lady-love, or his sister ; it 
was the grand holiday of the year. 

" Col. Ozias Bronson commanded the regiment, and I remember his 
coming to my father's to ask for my black ostrich plumes to wear on his 
hat. I also recollect that when the regiment was formed in a hollow 
square, the colonel tried to find a clergyman to make a prayer, but found 
none. He then took off his plumed cocked hat, as he sat on his horse, 
and said : ' I will pray ' ; so he did, and with great propriety. 

" It was customary for those who had been officers and soldiers in the 
then late war, to ride on horseback, single file, past the train band, take 
off their hats and bow to the company, who returned what was called the 
' General Salute,' by fife and drum. Well do I recollect seeing my father 
at the head of such a procession, riding pa^t Captain Hurlbut's company. 
To play Indian, dressed like savages, and sound the ' War- Whoop,' used 
to fill one with terror, for nothing was so dreadful in the minds of children 
as ' Indians ' and ' British Regulars.' " 



CHAP T E It XVII. 

EMIGRATION WEST WARD— FAMILY RECORDS. 
From 1S01 to 1811. 

At the opening of the nineteenth century the old society of Winchester 
had reached or passed iis culminating point, as to population and wealth,, 
as well as social institutions. As we have traced its slow growth, we have 
found it a hard struggle of energetic men encountering and subduing a 
most forbidding and inhospitable territory. Victory has crowned their 
efforts. A virtuous, law-abiding, God-fearing community has been organ- 
ized out of the heterogeneous materials gathered from every part of the 
state. The roads have been made, the mills built, the church organized, 
tie minister settle;!, the meeting house erected, the schools organized. 
Blacksmiths, tanners, shoemakers, hatters and tailors have begun to ply 
their trades, and even the dancing-master has found a lodgment, and held 
his assemblies once a fortnight, during the winter of 1 793-4, at Captain 
llurlbut's tavern. 

It would seem as if the labor worn denizens should now in comparative 
ease enjoy the fruits of their hard toils and privations. Such had doubt- 
less been the fond hopes that cheered their exhausting labors : for as yet 
they knew of no more fertile lands to be possessed and enjoyed. The 
Dutch settlements along the Hudson, from New York to Lake Cham- 
plain, then formed a barrier to the westward march of the Yankee nation, 
and they knew little of the wilderness heyond. As new and improved 
roads were projected from Schenectady westward along the Mohawk to 
Utica and onward, enterprising men from this and neighboring towns con- 
tracted to build them. They hired their laborers and teamsters mainly 
from the Greenwoods towns, especially from Winchester and Torrington. 
These laborers bore no resemblance to the railroad gangs of our day. 
They were the elite of our young and middle-aged fanners. They went 
on a service not unlike a military expedition, camping out and working 
their toilsome way through the German Flats to the virgin soil of Oneida 
county. They found it "a goodly land, a land of brooks of water, of 
fountains and depths that spring out of vallies and hills, a land of wheat 
and barley, a land wherein they should eat bread without scarceness, and 
should not lack anything in it." 



224 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

It was a region of beauty and fertility, well calculated to excite the 
desires of the hard-working and ill-compensated farmers of Western Con- 
necticut to better their lot, and to make them discontented with their own 
hard-featured, unproductive region. The spirit of emigration was again 
aroused. The men who had subdued the rugged hill sides of Northern 
Litchfield county bad accomplished labors, compared with which the clear- 
ing and bringing into cultivation the rich rolling lands of "the Oneida 
Country" was a mere pastime. They began to sell their newly-cleared 
lands before the stumps had decayed from their meadows, and to move 
away to the banks of the Mohawk, and to the shores of Oneida, Cayuga, 
and Seneca lakes. 

All the new towns of Litchfield county were seriously retarded in their 
growth by this first emigration westward, and not one of them so irre- 
trievably as Old Winchester. The old inhabitants speak of it as " the 
Great Exodus." The Danbury Quarter, which, prior to this movement, 
was thickly settled, in a few years became almost deserted, and has not to 
this day recovered from the exhausting drain of its inhabitants. Nume- 
rous old chimney places line the lonely roads where, in 1800, large fami- 
lies were reared, and school houses crowded. The late Dr. T. S. Wet- 
more is said to have counted up the remains of more than sixty chimneys, 
within the society, where the houses had never been rebuilt. 

While many valued inhabitants were thus abandoning the town, immi- 
grants were, to some extent, filling their places, whose names, residences, 
&c., we propose to continue through another decade, connecting therewith, 
as heretofore, the doings of the town and society. 

The year 1801 is made memorable by the election of Thomas Jefferson 
to the presidency, and also by the occurrence of the great flood, which 
took his name in commemoration of the coincident events. The flood was 
one of unprecedented magnitude, carrying away nearly all the bridges, 
and doing other heavy damages throughout this region. An extra tax of 
five mills on the dollar was laid for replacing and repairing the bridges of 
the town. 

In society meeting a call was voted to Rev. Archibald Bassett, and a 
salary offered him of one hundred pounds ($333.33), one-half "in mer- 
chantable pork, or beef, or butter, or cheese, or English grain, or Indian 
corn, or Wool, or Elax, if delivered by the first of each year, at current 
market prices." This not being accepted, the society proposed ninety-five 
pounds and twenty-five cords of wood ; and finally agreed to pay one 
hundred pounds, and to furnish wood as they had done to the former pas- 
tor. On these terms the call was accepted, and the union was consum- 
mated by an ordination, of which no minute is found, either in the Church 
or society records. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 225 

The Waterbury River Turnpike, running through Colebrook and Win- 
chester, and then down the Naugatuck valley, was chartered this year, and 
soon after was opened. It crossed the Green Woods turnpike at the 
Crocker house, passed through Winchester Centre village, and thence 
southerly to and along the Naugatuck branch to Wolcottville. Much 
benefit to stockholders and travelers was anticipated, but was never re- 
alized. Its income in course of years ceased to pay expenses, and about 
1850 the company threw open their gates and surrendered their charter. 

Richard Beckley, from Berlin, is on the list of this year; he lived 
and died on the cross-road or lane north of the Little Pond, in the house 
now occupied by his son, Daniel Beckley. He was father of Richard 
Beckley of Norfolk, Daniel and Norris Beckley of this town, and a 
daughter, who went West about 1815. His wife Susanna (Wilcox), died 
March 31, 1828, aged 62 ; he died May 2, 1841, aged 82. 

Richard Beckley, Jr., married October 16, 1825, Sabrina Spicer; 
she died and he married (2d) March 16, 1834, Mary Cook of Colebrook. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elisiia Morgan, b. April — , 1827 (son of Sabrina^. 
II. Jane, b. September 16, 1828 (dau. of Sabrina). 

III. Julia Sabrina, b. March 4, 1833 (dau. of Sabrina). 

IV. William Edmund, b. July 2, 1837 (son of Mary). 

Roger Cook, son of Aaron, of Winchester, is on this year's list, 
though according to the record of his birth only twenty years old. He 
lived in lown — the place of residence not ascertained — until about 1810. 

Abel Tibballs and Jane, his wife, this year, bought the farm in 
Danbury quarter now owned and occupied by their grand-son, George 
Tibballs. She died on this farm, October 5, 1809, aged 58, after which he 
married (2d) Anna, daughter of Eliphaz Alvord, and lived until his death 
(April 6, 1822, aged 71,) in the house that stood on the east side of the 
north and south Dugway road, opposite the parting of the road westerly 
to the center. 

Nathan Tibballs, son of Abel, occupied the original homestead un- 
til a few years before his death. He married Rebecca Green. 

CHILDREN. 

I. George. 
II. 

III. Huldah Rebecca, b. Jan. 6, 1821 ; m. May 20, 1841, Riley A. Grant, of 

Norfolk. 

IV. Nathan, d. April 1, 1841, aged 18. 
V. Sarah, d. April 1, 1842, aged 15. 

29 



226 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Nehemiah Bailey is on the tax list of this year, and owned and oc- 
cupied from 1802 to 1803 a lot of land on the old South Country road, 
near Torrington line. 

The severity ol the contest between the Federal and Republican parties 
is indicated by the number of new electors admitted this year. They 
were Abijah Wilson, Jr., Win. Filley, James Gilbert, Newell Haydon, 
Eli Andrews, Levi Daw, Levi Filley, Jonathan Douglass, Elijah Bene- 
dict, Lorrin Sweet, Cyrus Butrick, Anson Cook, Reuben Rowley, Joseph 
Ellsworth, Levi Fox, Joel Wright, Jesse Porter, John C. Riley, Obadiah 
Piatt, Levi Hoyt, Reuben Scovill, Joseph Mitchell, Luther Holcomb, 
Daniel Wilcox, David Holmes, Ebenezer Rowley, Stephen Kuowlton, 
Samuel Wetmore, 3d, Orrin Bronson, Stephen Hart, John C. Barber, 
Moses Hatch, Nathaniel Hoyt, Micajah Hoyt, John Wetmore, Joseph 
Cook, Isaac Bronson, Chauncey Bronson, Eden Benedict, Joseph Pres- 
ton, Amasa Wade, Andrew Pratt, Anson Allen, Lyman Doolittle, Ozias 
Spencer, Zenas Wilson, Stephen Hurlbut, Abel McEwen, Levi Coy, 
Lloyd Andrews, Asahel Morse, Isaac Wade, Eliphalet Mills, Nathaniel 
Smith, Wm. Westlake, and William Chickley. Total, 56. 

1802. 

The political feature of this year was the defeat of the Jefferson party 
and the restoration of the Federal party to the supremacy. 

The town and society records embrace only routine business. 

Mathew Adams, from Simsbury, this year bought a farm on both 
sides of the Winchester and Torrington line, partly in the third tier, drst 
division, on which he resided forty-seven years. In 1849 his house was 
burned down, and he soon after removed to Granville, Ohio, where he 
died September 24, 1863, aged 93. 

He lived and died without an enemy ; — yet he was a man with decided 
traits of character. Integrity and kindness marked all his dealings and 
intercourse. He was a prominent citizen, often employed in town 
affairs, and five times elected to the Assembly. He was born in Sims- 
bury, October 8, 1770, son of Matthew and Keziah Adams. Married Bet- 
sey Coe, of Simsbury, by whom he had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Mathew, who went while a young man to Gayamas, on the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia, and d. on the Pacific Coast within ten or fifteen years past. 
II. Susan, ; m. Coleman, of Ohio. 

III. Zelotes, who lived and died in Georgia. 

IV. Gaylord, who lived and died in Granville, Ohio. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 227 

V. Betsey, who m. Atwood, and died in Ohio. 

VI. Normand, residing in Winsted, who m. Betsey, daughter of Dr. Luman 
Wakefield. 
VII. Marcia Ann, who died in Winsted unmarried. 
VIII. John, who lived and died in Georgia. 
IX. Oscar, now residing in Portage, N. Y. 

Theodore Bailey, probably from Gosben, this year bought the farm 
lately owned by John A. Bidwell, on the Waterbury River turnpike, in 
Danbury quarter, and lived on it a few years. He was " of Goshen " in 
1807, and of Bath, Steuben County, New York, in 1817. 

Timothy Bailey bought of Theodore above, part of the Bidwell farm 
and other adjoining lands, on which he lived until 1807, or later. 

Txhamar Bailey, described " of Winchester," this year bought thirty 
acres of land with a dwelling-house thereon, now a part of the Bidwell 
farm, and sold it in 1803. 

James Barton, a hatter, resided in Winchester, and this year bought 
the house at the north angle of the road running east from the center and 
the north and south Dugway road, and sold it in 1804. 

William Chickley, a blacksmith, this year bought a lot near Goshen 
line, in Danbury quarter, and sold it v 1805. He afterwards bought 
and lived on a place between N. T. Loomis and Asaph Brooks, on the 
east side of Brooks street, which he sold in 1813. He married, March 
28, 1802, Hannah Moore. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Harriet, b. March 16, 1803. II. William, b. Jan. 1, 1806. 

Jonas Ellwell, a blacksmith, is listed this year in the old Society. 
He afterwards lived in the " old mill house " on Lake street, in Winsted, 
until 1805 or 180G, working in a blacksmith shop then standing on the 
west side of Lake street, nearly opposite the mill house. He removed 
to Barkhamsted or New Hartford. One of his sons was drowned by 
falling from the Kingdom bridge into the Farmington River in New 
Hartford. 

Benjamin Payne, named "of Bolton, Tolland County," this year 
bought the house and saw-mill property on Mad River, i diately south 
of the Danbury school -house, and sold the same in November, 1803, to 
Oliver Smith. He probably then left the town. The house and saw-mill 
have long since disappeared. 



228 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Phinehas Warren, 2d, from Saybrook, this year bought of Samuel 
Clark, the farm on the old Winsted and Winchester road, late owned by 
Daniel Murray, and sold the same to Reuben Marshall, in November, 
1806, — probably then leaving the town. 

Jesse Horton, "of Winchester," this year bought the Jonathan 
Blake house at the center, and sold it to Mr. Blake in 1812. He then 
bought and occupied, until 1823, the Samuel A. McAlpine place, half a mile 
south of the center, on the Waterbury River road. The Church voted 
him a letter to the Church in Trumansburg, New York, May 15, 1825. 
He had wife, Lydia, and 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julia, b. July 10, 1804. 

II. Harriet Rebecca, b. Aug. 6, 1810. 

III. Willis Dorrance, b. Jan. 11, 1814. 

IV. Henry Bishop, b. Sept. 1, 1819. 

The freemen admitted and sworn this year were Deacon Josiah Smith, 
Nathaniel Balcom, Michael Grinnell, Silliman Hubbell, Abel Stannard, 
Levi Ackley, Gideon Hall, Asher Rowley, Levi Norton, Jr., John Wet- 
more, Jr., David Coe, Moses Camp, Samuel Camp, Salmon Treat, 
Horace Eggleston, Reynold Wilson, Josiah Apley, Arah Loomis, John 
Deer, Elijah Starks, Hawley Oakley, Fisher Case, Rufus Grinnell, James 
Henshaw, Ezra Rockwell, Truman Smith, Phinehas Warner, Rufus 
Holmes, and Roswell Grant. 



1803. 

The records of the town and society this year embrace only routine 
business. 

Allen Burr, who lived in a hipped-roof house, now torn down, on 
the road east of the Little Pond, nearly opposite the lane to Daniel Beck- 
ley's, married, January 27, 1803, Anna Wade. He died June 22, 1806, 
aged 27. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Almira, b. Dec. 24, 1803; m. Oct. 17, 1821,Marova Seymour. 
II. Amasa, b. Oct. 24, 1805. 

John Hamilton from Goshen, owned a hundred-acre lot on both 
sides of Waterbury River turnpike, immediately north of the J. A. 
Bidwell farm, from 1803 to 1806, and is not afterwards found on the 
records. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 229 

Jupiter Mars, a colored man from Norfolk, bought a small lot at the 
west end of the Amanda Church farm, on which he lived until 1805, 
and then bought thirty acres of land on the Waterbury turnpike, now 
owned by the heirs of Quashe Potter, on which he lived until his return 
to Norfolk in 1809. 

Jupiter was originally a slave in Dutchess, or Ulster Co., N. Y., and 
was bought as such by a Reverend Mr. Thompson, a resident of Virginia, 
who brought him to Canaan, Conn., and there married him to a female 
slave, whom he brought from Virginia, and placed the married pair in 
charge of the farm on which his aged parents resided. They took good 
care of the old people, but did not make the farm pay. Their reverend 
master returning, and finding the state of things, took measures for carry- 
ing them back with him to Virginia. They found out his design, and fled 
with their children to the woods of Norfolk, where the few families around 
their place of refuge fed and concealed them. Mr. Thompson finding it 
impossible to get hold of them, or carry them out of the state, finally 
arranged that the two oldest boys should be sold within the county until 
twenty-five years old, when by law their slavery would end, and that 
Jupiter and his wife should at once go free. 

Joseph, the oldest boy, died before he was twenty -five; James, the 
other boy, at twenty-one years of age told his master he would be a slave 
no longer, and finally arranged to pay him ninety pounds for his remain- 
ing five years of slavery, which he earned and fully paid. 

The family thus freed from slavery proved worthy of the boon. 
Jupiter, the father, was a burly, jovial man, fond of good eating and 
drinking, and disposed to enjoy life as it moved on. Fanny, the mother, 
was the best cook in the region, and a most estimable woman. The 
children had a high degree of self-respect and refinement. James, the 
slave boy, became deacon, first of the Zion African Church, at Hartford, 
and afterwards of the African Church, at Pittsfield, Mass. John, a 
younger son, became a Methodist preacher in "Worcester Co., Mass., and 
afterwards served in the late war, first as chaplain of a colored regiment, 
in North Carolina, and afterward as minister among the freed men. 
Elizabeth, one of the daughters, was educated at Philadelphia, and went 
out as a teacher to Liberia, where she married, and is still employed in 
teaching. A daughter of her brother James has since joined her in the 
same capacity. Sherman, another son, was a sailor out of Stonington for 
many years before his death. Three other daughters, two of them 
still living, have ever commanded the respect of all who knew them. 

Oliver SMiTn from Southwick, Mass., this year bought and occupied 
a house and lot on the south side of Mad River, on the road running 
south from the Danbury school house. He afterward bought and occu- 



230 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

pied the red house next west of the Green Woods turnpike toll gate, 
until about 1816, when he removed to Tyringham. He became a 
Methodist exhorter, but had not attained to the priesthood when he left 
here. 

In his zeal for purity and good morals, he was so exceedingly scan- 
dalized one day by the sight of Old Holcomb passing along the road 
with his beloved fiddle on his shoulder, that he incited a reckless neigh- 
bor to seize the profane instrument and dash it to pieces. Holcomb sued 
him as principal in the trespass, and made him pay heavily for his 
iconoclasm. 

Daniel Rice is assessed this year, but probably lived in the town 
earlier, as he had by wife Anna, a son, named Chester, born October 24, 
1801. 

The electors admitted and sworn were as follows : — Phinehas Reed, 
Amos Hungerford, Joel Kimberly, Elisha Kimberly, Samuel Hoadley, 
Ransley Bull, Ithamar Bailey, Jacob Seymour, Stephen Wade, Stephen 
Gaylord, James Barton, William Phillips, Nathan Potter, Timothy 
Bailey, and Eli Marshall. 

1804. 

The town and society meetings of this year were confined to routine 
business. 

The electors admitted were : — Daniel Coe, Daniel Mills, and Elihu 
Everitt. 

Elihu Everitt, son of Andrew of Winchester, came of age this 
year, and seems to have lived on the Norfolk road, near the west line of 
the town, from this year to 1809 or later, and is named of Vernon, N. Y., 
in a deed of 1812. He married Roxy, daughter of John Marshall of 
Winchester, as appears by the same deed. 

Isaac Jackltn came into the town this year, and resided until his 
death (May 13, 1834, aged 90), on a farm in Danbury Quarter, still 
owned by his descendants, and now occupied in part by Noah Barber. 
He is said to have been a servant of Secretary Wyllys of Hartford, from 
whom he ran away before the Revolutionary War, and took refuge in the 
Ragged Mountain region of Barkhamsted. Here he won the heart of a 
daughter of Chaugum, the head or chief of the Narragansctt Indians, who 
held their council fire at the " Light House," but could not get Chaugum 
to sanction their marriage ; so they ran away, got married, settled down 
in Danbury Quarter, made baskets, and raised children, of whom John 
was the oldest, and lived and died (November 21, 1850, aged 58), on the 
paternal farm, leaving several children, among whom were Isaac of 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 231 

Colebrook and Samuel of Pennsylvania, or elsewhere. A daughter of 
Mrs. (Chaugum) Jacklyn married into the family of Elwells, who, in 
conjunction with the Wilsons, still linger around the Light House, occa- 
sionally lighting up the old council fires. 

Seth Portkr from Goshen, this year owned and lived in a house on 
the west side of Brooks Street, somewhere near the old Everitt place, 
and the next year removed to the Luman Munsill house, near the center, 
and soon after left the town. 

Isaac Sweet, son of Peleg, and a native of the town, came of ago 
this year. He owned twenty-five acres of the southwest part of his 
father's farm, until 1807, and probably removed soon afterwards with his 
father to the Western Reserve, O. 

1805. 

In society meeting, December 30, 1805, "the question being put to 
said meeting by the moderator, on motion made and seconded, does this 
meeting feel satisfied with Mr. Bassett, as their minister ? — and it was 
voted in the negative," whereupon a committee was directed to wait on 
Mr. B. and inform him of this vote, and to report the result of their con- 
ference to an adjourned meeting, on January G, 1805. 

The freemen admitted this year were : — Luther Hoadley, Oliver Smith, 
Timothy Porter, Jasper Videto, and Benjamin Johnson. 

James Beebe, Esq., son of Colonel Bezaleel Beebe of Litchfield, is 
this year assessed as an inhabitant of the town. He lived on the 
McEwen homestead from this time until 1838, soon after which he 
removed to Hartford, Trumbull County, Ohio, where he died in 18G5. 
He was a man of the old puritan stamp, prominent in town and church ; 
was a justice of the peace for many years, a representative at three 
sessions of the assembly, and senator from the 15th district in 1836 and 
1837. He married May 29, 1800, Abi, second daughter of Robert 
McEwen. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julia Frances, b. May 24, 1801 ; m. June 26, 1827, Darius Phelps 

of Norfolk. 
II. Elizabeth Garrett, 1j. February 13, 1803 ; m. November 7, 1826, 
Biidsey Brownsou of Winchester. 
HI. Sarah, b. July 3, 1805; m. May 12, 1829, Doctor Benj. 

Welch, Jr., of Norfolk. 
IV. Robert McEwen, b. August 17, 1807 ; d. December 28, 1807. 

V. Mary, h. April 8, 1809 ; d. June 23, 1838. 

VI. Robert McEwen, b. April 28, 1811. Physician, Hartford, O. 

VII. James Hbrvey, b. August 8, 1813. 

VIII. Ebenezer, Ik May 27, 1818. 



232 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Jared Curtis, of Pompey, State of New York, in. Dec. 27, 1801, 
Submit Hubbard, daughter of Elijah Hubbard of W. He received a deed 
this year, from his father-in-law, of his homestead, iu the vicinity of the 
Bronson & Rugg cheese box factory, and resided on the premises until 
1816, when he bought the Rums Drake farm, in Hall Meadow, which he 
occupied until 1823. He died in Norfolk, Jan. 1, 1861, aged 81. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sylvia, b. in Fabius, Onondaga Co., N. Y., Dec. 17, 1802. 

II. True Worthy (son), b. Oct. 14, 1804. 

III. Jane Wyllys, b. Aug. 17, 1806. 

IV. Chester, b. Aug. 25, 1808. 
V. Hiram, b. Aug. 19, 1810. 

VI. Daniel, b. Aug. 12, 1812. 

VII. Emilia, b. May 24, 1815. 

VIII. Lorrain, b. Oct. 23, 1817. 

IX. Berona (dau.), b. Feb. 16, 1819. 

X. l-edelia, b. April 4, 1822. 

Levi Hoyt lived in a house on the north side of Mad River, and east 
side of the north and south highway, near the Danbury School-house, 
until 1807. In 1811 he lived in Litchfield. 

Elijah Pinney, this year lived in Winchester, and was " of Bark- 
hamsted," in 1814, when he bought the Harry Blake farm, on the old 
road from Winsted to Winchester, on which he resided until 1835, when 
he removed to Erie, Penn., and died there. His widow, Mahala, died in 
Col eb rook, in January, 1866, at the house of her son-in-law, Ralzemon 
Phelps. 

Isaac Tucker, son of Reuben, of W., and a native of the town, 
came of age this year. He m. Nov. 5, 1805, Pamelia Benedict. In 
1811, he became the owner of his father's homestead on Mad River, near 
Norfolk line, which he occupied until about 1827. He died some ten 
years later. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Phinehas Judd, b. May 17, 1807. 

II. Anna, b. June 8, 1809. 

ni. Timothy Benedict, b. Dec. 29, 1811. 

IV. Willard, b. May 22, 1815. 

V. Wyllys, b. Marcb 26, 1817. 
VI. Sarah Pamela, b. Oct. 16, 1820. 

VII. Isaac, b. Sept. 26, 1827. 

Chauncey White, a tailor, lived until about 1810, on the Norfolk 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 233 

road, beyond L. B. Hurlbut's, and then built and occupied a small bouse 
that stood near the stone house of Isaac A. Bronson, until about 1813, 
when he removed from the town. 



1806. 

Either the " fathers of the town " had heretofore received the honor of 
their appointment as a sufficient compensation, or they had charged 
a' higher price for services than their constituents approved, as would 
seem from a vote of this year, " to allow some compensation to select men 
for their services," and another vote fixing the compensation at fifty cents 
a day. 

The geese of the town, perhaps by reason of affinity to the selectmen, 
seemed to have been deemed worthy of " some compensation," which "was 
provided for by the following vote : 

" Voted, that every goose found in the highway, if any person shall 
take up such goose, and drive the same to the owner, or to pound, shall 
be entitled to receive two cents for each goose or gander." * 

Manifestations of discontent, on the part of the Church and Society, 
with the pastorate of Mr. Bassett, began to appear at the close of the 
year 1805. Early in 1806, Mr. B. was requested to join in the call of a 
council with reference to his dismission. Further steps were taken in 
April, which resulted in the call of a council, consisting of Rev. Messrs. 
Bobbins of Norfolk, Hooker of Goshen, and Lee of Colebrook, and Dea- 
cons Norton and Frisbie, " to advise such measures as they in their wis- 
dom should think proper." . The advice given does not appear. In May, 
following, a vote of very questionable propriety was passed, appointing a 
committee "to enquire of any person they may think proper, whether 
any, and if any, what allegations can be brought and substantiated against 
Mr. Bassett's moral conduct as a gospel minister or a Christian." After 
the report of this committee, a series of allegations were embodied in a 
complaint, and submitted to the moderator of Consociation. The Con- 
sociation met in August. Neither the charges exhibited, nor the result of 
council thereon, are found on Record. Mr. Bassett was dismissed from 

* That this was not a solitary instance of ambiguous legislation, is shown by the 
following extract from the records of Simsbury : 

' At a Gencrall Town metting of the Inhabetanc of Simsbury, Regulerly convened 
fcbucry twenty-eight, 1718-19, these Sundery acts were past: Im:prs : Samuel bar- 
borwas chosen to take care to prowide a bull for hop meadow in the Room of Ephraim 
buell said buell being dead." 

30 



234 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

his charge, but was not deposed from the ministry. In the following year 
he brought before the Association (or Consociation) a complaint against 
the Church, exhibiting eleven articles of charge for immoral conduct 
toward him. The church went into consideration of each of the articles 
of charge, and unanimously denied their being guilty of each and all of 
them. The church records do not show the nature of the charges, nor 
the result arrived at by Consociation ; and the record of the trial, and 
result of that body, if in existence, has not been accessible to the com- 
piler. 

Rev. Mr. Marsh, in his account of the Winchester Church, before 
referred to, writes as follows : 

" Mr. Bassett removed to Walton, Delaware Co., N. Y. How long he 
continued pastor of that church is not known to the writer. After his 
dismission from that people, he preached considerably in various places, 
but continued his residence at Walton. 

" He was a man of talents, had a high standing in a good class — wrote 
able, sound and discriminating discourses, — and merely as a preacher, 
might have been acceptable to his people. But unhappily, in his dealings 
with men, and management of secular matters, he was so indiscreet as to 
create difficulties which led to his dismission. He married Kezia, dau. of 
Mr. Zebulun Curtis of Torringford, a worthy woman." Their daughter, 
Mary, was baptized June 23, 1805. 

The electors admitted this year were Jared Curtis, Samuel Hurlbut, Jr., 
Warren W. Norton, Alexander Cleveland, Isaac Sweet, James Beach, 
Elizur Hinsdale, and Roger Root, Jr. 

Wait Loomis, from Torrington, brother of Lorrin and Arah of W., 
lived in the old house since torn down, at the parting of the roads above 
the Dugway, where he d. Feb. 25, 1849, aged 83. He in. in 1796, Sally 
Stone, wdio d. Sept. 25, 1845, aged 77 years, leaving one daughter, So- 
phronia, who has had two husbands, Swain and Leonard. 

Daniel Murray, b. Torrington, April 4, 1785, came to Winchester 
when a boy, and is on the assessment list of this year. In 1815, he bought 
of William Miner, the Samuel Clark farm, which continued to be his 
homestead until his death, Aug. 27, 1870. He m. March 25, 1810, 
Roxalany North, of Torrington; born Nov. 2, 1785. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Philomela, b. July 7, 1811 ; m. Sept. 10, 1850, Wilkes, of Norfolk. 
II. Frederick, b. " 28, 1813 ; m. June 2, 1847, Ann M. Caul. 

III. Flora, b. Sept. 4, 1815; m. Samuel W. Starks. 

IV. Jennett, 1). April 2, 1818 ; m. George Phelps. 
V. Lucketia, b. Dec. 15, 1820; m. Augustus Smith. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 235 

VI. Sabra, b. July 24, 1823. 

VII. Prudence, b. Sept. 1826; m. (1st), Lucius Curtis; 

(2d), Ralph I. Crissey. 

Roger Root, from New London county, a shoemaker, came to Win- 
chester this or the preceding year. He owned no real estate in the 
town, — resided mainly in the Danbury Quarter, — and died Nov. 1, 
1820, aged 84. His wife, Temperance, died July 2, 1833, aged 89. 

Roger Root, Jr., lived in the house since torn down, some thirty 
rods north of Joel G. Griswold's, on the west side of the old Winsted 
and Winchester road, until he removed to Erie Co., Penn., about 1820. 
He m. March 26, 1807, Florinda, dau. of John Miner. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Caroline Nancy, b. Feb. 9, 1808. 
II. Harry Oscar, b. Aug. 23, 1810. 

III. Lucius Miner, b. Feb. 28, 1814. 

IV. Juliette, b. June 26, 1816. 



Gurdon Root, son of Roger, and a bachelor, lived with his maiden 
sisters, Hannah and Nancy, in a house which was burned while occupied 
by them, on the old Waterbury turnpike, half a miie south of Mad 
River, and afterwards in the second house beyond the toll gate, on the 
north side of Green Woods turnpike, until his death, May 29, 1832, aged 
50. Hannah resided with him and died in the same house, July 26, 1835, 
aged 58. Nancy, the other sister, in 1849, bought a house on north side 
of High street, Winsted, near Elm street, in which she came to her death 
by the accidental burning of her clothes, while alone in the house, Sept. 
24, 1862. 

Asahkl Smith, from Torrington, is on the tax list of this year. He 
m. Oct. 6, 1S09, Elizabeth, widow of Luke Case? deceased, and lived on 
the east and west road, bordering the Torrington line, in a house now 
torn down, until 1828, when he removed to Winsted, and lived in the 
Russell house on the old Colebrook road until his death, May 29, 1832, 
aged 50. He represented the town in the General Assemblies of 1827 
and 1831. 

His first wife dying he m. (2d), Oct. 27, 1828, 

Widow Sophia (Mun-on) Rice, of Barkhamsted, who m. March 7, 1842, 
Reuben Brown of Norfolk. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Abel Adams, b. March 10, 1811 ; m. Nov. 30, 1837, Ruth Coe; d. child- 
less, May 11, 1841. She d. April 18, 1847. 



236 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

II. Minerva, b. Sept. 1, 1812 ; in. Nov. 7, 1825, Henry Stanton. 

III. Elizabeth, b. Aug. 14, 1814 ; m. March 16, 1836, Sheldon A. Wilcox. 

IV. Harriet, b. June 20, 1826. 
V. Eveline, b. Aug. 19, 1819. 

CHILD BY SECOND WIFE. 
VI. Ann, b. 

1807. 

Rev. Thomas Robbins, D. D., son of Rev. Ammi R: Robbins, of 
Norfolk, was employed to fill the pulpit made vacant by the dismission of 
Mr. Bassett ; — and on the 20th of April of this year, a committee was 
appointed to ascertain his views of settling in the ministry ; and to secure 
the continuance of his labors as a candidate. In May following it was 
voted, " that we do earnestly and sincerely wish that Mr. Robbins would 
agree to supply the pulpit personally, when he is able ; but in case his 
health will not admit of it, that he should engage some one to preach in 
his absence, — and that he be indulged the liberty of taking all possible 
pains to gain his health." 

At the annual meeting, November 2d, it was unanimously voted (53 
members of the Society preseut and voting), to invite Mr. Robbins to a 
settlement, with a salary of $430. The Church, with equal unanimity } 
voted the call. Owing to his feeble health Mr. Robbins declined the call, 
and soon afterward withdrew from the Society. 

The electors admitted this year were Jos. T. Cummings, Stephen 
Wheadon, Jos. Chamberlin, Chauncey White, Elisha Wetmore, and Jona- 
than Church. 

Samuel W. Baldwin, from Goshen, became the owner and occupant 
of the old Crocker house, at the parting of the Green Woods and Water- 
bury River turnpikes, half a mile above the toll-gate, and succeeded 
Simeon Moore as tavenr-keeper, adding thereto the trade of blacksmith. 
In 1810 he sold out and left the town, but in 1818 resumed the owner- 
ship, and in 1819 conveyed the premises to his son, Norman Baldwin, who 
sold out to James Crocker in 1823 and removed to Vernon, New York. 
He had another son, George W., older than Norman, who was graduated at 
Yale College in 1811. 

Norm an Baldwin, married, February 2, 1820, Lovisa Benedict. 

CHILDREN. 

I'. Moses Lyman, b. .Tan. 1, 1822. 

II. ZALMON Luman, b. March 26, 1824. 

His name is last on the assessment list in 1824. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 237 

Levi L. Hatch, son of Moses, of W., is on the list of this and the 
following years, until 1811, after which he resided at Coxsackie, New 
York, until a short time before his death. He died in W., August 6, 
1845, aged 59. 

Zenas Neal, from Harwinton, owned and occupied a lot and house 
thereon, near Norfolk line, on the southern border of Danbury Quarter, 
until 1811, and thereafter disappears from the records. 

Lancelot Phelps, Sr., this year built the Green Woods Hotel 
building, at the parting of the Waterbury River and Green Woods turn- 
pikes near Colebrook line, in which he resided about a year and then re- 
moved to Colebrook. He was father of Warren, and grandfather of the 
late Wm. H. Phelps, of Winsted. 

Kocer Starkweather, from Windsor, bought and lived in the 
house at the parting of the north and south, and Old Country roads, be- 
low the burying-ground, now or lately owned by Nelson Hart. He died 
May 26, 1826, aged 44. Wife Martha. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Emily, b. March 5, 1807 ; m. Jnn. 17, 1827, Wm. Phippcnny, of Tor. 
II. Harriet, b. Sept. 17, 1809 ; m. Oct, 6, 1829, John C. Bavbcr, of Tor. 

III. Thomas, b. Jan. 1,1815. 

IV. Charles, b. March 26, 1817; d. Nov. 22, 1850. 



1808. 

In 1799, one-third of the town meetings had been carried to Winsted 
and were held at the old Higley tavern, now standing in the West village ; 
— all of the electors' meetings being still held in the old Society. This 
year Winsted had so increased in population as to claim that both the 
town and electors' meetings should be there holden each alternate year. 
The result was a vote to hold half the town meetings in the Winsted (east 
village) meeting house ; — all the electors' meetings still to be held in 
the old Society. 

In Society meeting, January 1 1, 1808, the committee were directed to 
employ Rev. Frederick Marsh to supply the pulpit for the future at their 
discretion. 

February 12th, it was voted to paint the meeting house, — the body 
white, and the l'oof red. 

At the annual meeting, November 7th, it was voted to unite with 
the Church in their call to Mr. Frederick Marsh, to settle in the work of 



238 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

the Gospel Ministry; — 33 in favor and 1 against the vote; — and to 
give him a salary of $430. 

December 19th, Mr. Marsh declined the call, partly on account of lack of 
unanimity and partly on account of his inability to procure a residence 
without going into debt therefor ; — whereupon the Society voted unani- 
mously (42 present and voting) to continue their call, and to ascertain 
whether his first reason assigned would be insurmountable, provided the 
second were obviated. Mr. Marsh's answer to this overture was laid be- 
fore a meeting on the 30th of December, and was as follows : 

Brethren and Friends: 

Your call to me to settle in the work of the Gospel Ministry has re- 
ceived from me a deliberate and solemn attention. After a mature and 
prayerful consideration of the call, and the several subjects connected 
with it ; and after taking the advice of my particular friends, and others 
whose situation and experience enable them to assist me in making 
up my mind on so important a subject, I have thought it my duty to ac- 
cept, and accordingly do accept your invitation to settle with you in the 
work of the ministry, provided at the time appointed for the ordination 
no difficulty should then exist in Church or Society, which would render 
it improper for me to receive ordination. 

With sentiments of respect, and a desire for the peace and happiness of 
the people, I am yours &c, 

Winchester, Dec. 30, 1808. Frederick Marsh. 

The 1st clay of February, 1809, was appointed for the ordination, and 
the previous Friday assigned by the Church as a day of fasting and 
prayer, and one or more neighboring ministers were invited to attend the 
exercises. 

Neither the records of the Society or Church, nor Mr. Marsh's histori- 
cal notes give any particulars of the ordination. 

It took place on the day appointed, and . Mr. Marsh entered on his 
faithful and acceptable ministrations, and still lives, the venerable and be- 
loved Patriarch of the ministers of Litchfield County. 

He was son of Jonathan Marsh of New Hartford, where he was born 
September 18, 1780. He prepared for college with Rev. A. R. Robbins, 
of Norfolk, — graduated at Yale, September, 1805, — studied theology 
under Rev. Asahel Hooker, of Goshen, — was licensed as a preacher by 
the North Association of Litchfield County, — and was dismissed from 
his pastoral charge October 2, 1851, after a laborious ministry of more 
than forty-two years. He married, May 22, 1809, Parnal Merrill, of 
New Hartford, daughter of Joseph and Lydia (Flower) Merrill, born 
August 7, 1782; died March 11, 1860. 




^sy-t^// >^<- A r « //r<rv. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 239 



CHILDREN. 

I. Louisa Merrill, b. May 16, 1810; d. May 9, 1831- 

II. Catharine, b. April 3, I S 1 2 ; m. June 17, 1835, Rev. Geo. 

Carrington, of Hadlyme, who d. ia Rushville, 111., Oct. .'51, 1843. 

III. Jonathan Pitkin (deaf and dumb), b. April 2G, 1814; in. Jan. 24,1840, 

Paulina Bowdish. 

IV. Frederick Edward, b. Dec. 30, 1816; m. Jan. 2, 1844, Matilda 

Marsh; shed. Jan. 5, 1860, and he m. (2d), May 8, 1862, Mrs. Eliza A. 
Spencer. 
V. Sarah Ann, b. Dec. 29, 1819; d. Sept. 15, 1823. 

VI. Joseph Merrill, b. Sept. 15, 1823; m. May 5, 1848, Candace G. 

E;m;leston, of Winchester. 
VII. Howard Pitkin (twin), b. April 12, 1826; m. June 10, 1856, Harriett 
E. Hotehkiss, of New Haven ; d. New Hartford, Feb. 21, 1864. 
VIII. Henry Flower, (twin), b. April 12, 1826 ; m. June 11, 1855, Sarah E. 
Frissell, who d. Aug. 24, 1870. 



Asaph B. Brooks, from Chatham, became a resident this year. In 
1816, in connection with his brothers, Samuel and Chauncey, he bought 
the Peleg Sweet farm, in Danbury quarter, on Brooks street, on which 
he died November 27, 1866, aged 83. 

Asher Case, son of William R., once of this town, this year became 
the owner of the Rufus Eggle-ton farm, on the West side of Long Pond, 
■which he conveyed away in 1820, by a deed in which he is named "of 
Hartford." He returned to this town about 1825, and after 1845, lived 
on the farm now owned by his sous, Edward and George. He d. Sept. 
7, 1858, aged 67. 

Samuel Cone and Warren Cone, sons of Daniel Hurlbut Cone, 
of W., and natives of the town, are on the list of this year. Samuel 
lived here until about 1810, and then went to Norfolk, and carried on 
the scythe making business until his death. He was a Deacon of the 
Norfolk Cong. Church, and a man of eminent piety. His twin sons, 
John and James, reside in Winsted. Warren Cone went to Norfolk with 
his brother Samuel, and was for some years partner with him in the 
scythe making business, and afterwards built and carried on a shop of his 
own. He was a prominent man of the town, which he represented in the 
Assemblies of 1834 and 1838. 

Erastus G. Hurlbut, from Torrington, is on the list of this year. 
In 1816 he bought the Frederick Murray farm, adjoining Sucker Brook, 
on the old Winsted and Winchester road, on which he lived until his re- 
moval to Torrington, in 1825. He m. Dec. 16, 1812, Clarissa, dau. of 
Russell Goodwin of W. 



240 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Ammi Murray, brother of Daniel, of W., son of Daniel of Torring- 
ton, b. July 29, 1787, is on the list of this year as a resident. Iif 1822, 
he bought the old Roberts farm, and lived in the house thereon now torn 
down, on the old Winsted and Winchester road, some thirty rods north of 
Joel G. Griswold's, until his removal to North Bloomfield, Trumbull Co., 
Ohio, in 1831. He m. Feb. 23, 1814, Prudence, dau. of Remembrance 
North of Torrington. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Emeline, II. Juliette, III. Helen. 

John Storer, or Story, is on the list this year as a resident. He 
was by trade a Joiner, owned no real estate in the town, and had no fixed 
residence. About 1825, he left his family and joined the Tyringham 
Shakers. He m. Jan. 7, 1808, Eunice, dau. of John Church. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Simeon, b. Sept. 30, 1808. 
II. David, b. Dec. 3, 1810. 
III. Eliza, b. Nov. 4, 1812; m. July 3, 1834, Samuel D. Sheldon; both of 
tbem run-away Shakers. 

George Tuttle, a blacksmith, came to the town this year. In 1817, 
he bought the second house west of the toll gate, on the north side of 
the Green Woods turnpike, and had a shop on the opposite side of the 
road. He lived here until his removal to Colebrook, about 1825, where 
he died about 1850. He had several children, born in this town; among 
them, Joel, still a resident. 

The electors admitted this year were Elijah Blake, Jr., Jonathan 
Blake, Joseph Coit, Jesse Clark, Elisha Rowley, Reuben Baldwin, Asa 
Mallory, Lemuel Hnrlbut, Eben Coe, William Miner, Isaac Tucker, 
John Westlake, and Elisha Smith. 



1809. 

The records of these latter years indicate that our town enjoyed great 
quiet if not prosperity. All the doings of this year, election of town 
officers and laying of taxes included, are recorded on a single page. 

The Society, too, under its new pastor, enjoyed great quiet ; the only 
extra-routine business recorded being a vote "to pay a leader of Psalm- 
ody, to instruct the youth and others in the art of singing," or in other 
words to hire a singing master. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 241 

The only new names of residents appearing, are Fisk Beach, who has 
been noticed in connection with his father, and Noble J. Everitt, both 
natives of the town. 

Noble, J. Everitt, son of Dr. Josiah, and grandson of Widow Han- 
nah of W., lived with his father during his life, and still lives in the lean- 
to house on the West side of the Waterbury River road, between Luman 
Munsill on the North, and Marcus Munsill on the. South, He m. Roxy 
E., dan. of Elisha Cook, Esq., of Torrington, and had one child, Albert 
Chester, b. Dec. 22, 1816, who died in childhood. 

The electors admitted this year were William Chamberlin, 2d, Asher 
Case, Lyman Strong, Daniel Burnham, and Roger Starkweather. 

1810. 
The town and society records of this year are without interest. 

The electors admitted this year- were Ira Preston and Riley Whit- 



Capt. Eli Richards, from Torrington, this year bought the farm 
recently conveyed by the widow of Artemas Rowley to Alonzo C Par- 
cels, which he occupied until his death, Jan. 23, 1816, aged 66. By his 
wife, Lydia, who d. in W. Oct. 30, 1835, aged 74, he had an only child, 
Elizabeth, who m. Oct. 1, 3 817, Joseph Miller, Esq., of Winsted, and d. 
in Michigan about 1855. 

William Crum, a saddler and harness maker, is on this year's list as 
a resident. In -1813, he bought of Chauncey White the house which 
stood adjoining Isaac A. Bronson's new stone house, in which he resided 
until his death, Dec. 14, 1824, aged 49. He in. Oct. 22, 1811, Hannah, 
dau. of John Nash of W., who is still living in Winsted. 

children. 

I. Frederick, b. March 21, 1813; resilient of Unionville, Conn. 
II. Sophia, b. Sept. 1, 1815; in. May 6, 1846, Abram G. Kello<;(i', of W. 



31 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

STATE OF SOCIETY— CUSTOMS— FAMILY RECORDS. 

1811 to 1831. 

We find Old Winchester, at this period, in its full maturity and vigor 
— a staid agricultural community, with well-established institutions in good 
running order, with a homogeneous population, elastic in spirit, virtuous 
in morals, and orthodox in faith, with property as equally distributed as is 
consistent with the varied capacity of men to acquire and to hold it, with 
no overshadowing rich, and very few abjectly poor men. 

The compiler's lirst personal knowledge of this section of the town was 
acquired by attending a Fourth of July celebration there solemnized in 
1810 or 1811. To a hoy of eleven or twelve years, whose experience of 
the world had been hitherto limited by the hills and mountains surround- 
ing the Winsted valley, this outlook on the world was decidedly impres- 
sive. The elevated plateau of the centre village received the earliest rays 
of the rising sun, and the latest effulgence of the setting luminary. 
Around and near the village green were some half dozen most respectable 
lean-to houses, some of them in white paint and others in red, which were 
occupied by the clerical, legal, medical, and magisterial dignitaries. There 
were other houses indicating comfort and respectability : two gambrel- 
l'oofed stores, one Federal and the other Democratic, where they sold two 
and six-penny hum-hums for eighteen pence a yard, Barlow knives for 
nine-pence a piece, and New England nun for three shillings, and Jamaica 
for four and sixpence a gallon. The tavern was a one-story building of 
neutral tint, large on the ground, with a capacious garret. Two black- 
smith shops and the pound were on the outskirts of the village. 

The meeting-house stood near the centre of the triangular green, with 
its line of horse-sheds bordering the front line of Theron Bronson's prem- 
ises. The whipping-post and stocks, those indispensable pillars of New 
England law and order, stood on the green near the meeting house. The 
post did extra duty as a sign post, on which public notices were fastened, 
and to which, when occasion required, the petty thief was tied, to receive 
from the constable his five or ten lashes " well laid on to his naked back." 

The "stocks" were an upper and lower plank, say six feet long, eight 
inches wide, and two inches thick, the lower one lying edgewise near the 



FAMILY RECORDS. 243 

ground, mortised at one end into the post and firmly fastened to the 
ground at the other. The upper plank was attached to the post at one 
end by a heavy hinge, so that its lower edge came in contact with the 
upper edge of the other, and they were held together by a hasp and pad- 
lock at their outer ends. At the line of junction of the two planks were 
four holes, half in the upper and half in the lower plank, about three 
inches in diameter, ranged at suitable distances for receiving the ankles 
of two culprits. How often our worthy forefathers and their young chil- 
dren were treated with the edifying spectacle of a public whipping at the 
post or of a culprit in the stocks, is not ascertainable. 

A well authenticated tradition is handed down, of one Meacham, a hired 
laborer of old Squire Hurlbut, of very moderate intellect, who, after a 
faithful service and inoffensive life of several years, took it into his head 
to run away, and to carry with him a variety of articles of clothing, &c, 
purloined from his employer's premises. His theft being discovered, he 
was pursued, brought back, and tried on a grand juror's complaint, found 
guilty, and sentenced to be publicly whipped at the post. The sentence 
was duly executed on Saturday. On Sunday following, though not a 
church member, he attended public service, occupying a prominent seat. 
At the close of service, he arose, and the minister read to the audience 
his penitential confession, asking pardon of the church and the community, 
and that he might be restored to public confidence. The minister then 
exhorted the people to accept his confession, and to extend to him their 
sympathy and encouragement in aid of his reformation. He is said to 
have continued to live with his old employer for several \ a blameless 

and exemplary life. 

To return from this episode to the celebration : — the day was fine, the 
gathering large. The long booth of green boughs >od on the green in front 
of the tavern and shaded a table of equal length, loaded with baked beef and 
mutton, roasted pigs, baked Indian puddings, and pies of every variety the 
season afforded. The sayings and doings of the occasion were fully reported 
in the Connecticut Courant of the following week ; how the procession was 
escorted into the meetingdiouse by Captain Bunnell's full militia company, 
the singing led by Major Lloyd Andrews, the prayer offered by Rev. Ammi 
R. Robbins of Norfolk, the able and brilliant oration pronounced by Rev. 
Chauncey Lee of Colebrook, the table presided over by Captain Abial 
Loomis of Winchester ; then followed the toasts fragrant with sentimental 
patriotism and Malaga wine, each followed by a feu-de-joie of musketry 
and the asthmatic cough of a cast-iron four-pounder field piece, mounted 
on cart-wheels which had been brought from Litchfield for the occasion, 
no cannon having ever before been fired in the peaceful town.* 

* The history of the old field-piece, prior to its advent in Winchester, whether it 
was a trophy of the Old French Wars or of the Revolutionary struggle, is lost in 



244 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Such was Old Winchester sixty years ago. Several of the old lean-to 
houses have passed away. The venerable mansion where Squire Alvord 
dispensed justice for nearly fifty years, is gone, leaving no trace behind. 
The dwelling place of Rev. Mr. Knapp is also gone, and its location 
undefined by any visible mark of a former habitation. Captain Hurlbut's 
tavern at the center has given place to the present residence of his 
grandson bearing bis name. Four or five others, at and near the center, 
still remain decayed and venerable, but not dilapidated. 

The old Meeting House, and the Tavern House of 1810, afterwards 
used as a store, are also gone, as well as the whipping post and stocks. 
The Green is no longer cumbered with church sheds, or other appen- 
dages. The more recent meeting house, a neat, well-repaired building, 
with its wooden Doric portico, tower, and bell, faces the Green at the east, 
end of the northern border, and the new and commodious store of Theron 
Bronson has superseded the former store building, while his dwelling 
occupies the intervening space in the rear of the old horse sheds. 
Several other large and commodious dwellings of modern date give to 
the village a cheerful and refined aspect. 

The subsequent history of the Society is barren of notable incidents. 



oblivion. Since it first gave voice to the patriotism of Old Winchester, its fate has 
been quite eventful. It never went back to Litchfield, having been bought of its former 
owners by old Uncle Richard Coit, who, some years after, parted with it to some un- 
known parties in Winsted. Here it was made to vomit small thunder from its rusty 
throat from Cobble Hill, Street Hill, and divers other places, on all festive occasions. 
It was brought into service to defend the liberty pole on the East Village Park against 
the assaults of the old Federalists during the War of 1812, and at a later period to 
break up meetings of the pestilent abolitionists. Some thirty years ago a couple of 
lusty old maids living at the East Village hotel, out of patience with the noisy thing, 
which had been fired off in front of the house half the night, and had been left on the 
ground, contrived to roll it into the garden, where they dug a grave and buried it. 
The gun was no more to be found for a dozen years, when the secret of its burial 
place leaked out. It was exhumed and again did service in celebrating the political 
victories of each party until the Buchanan campaign, during which the Republicans 
again secretly buried it, with the intention of resurrecting it for use in the event of Fre- 
mont's election. The Democrats discovered its grave in season to secure it for their 
use when the returns came in, showing the election of "the Old Public Functionary." 
They used it most savagely in front of the Herald office, breaking in the windows and 
doors and smashing things generally. Why it didn't burstwith the enormous charges 
filling it to the muzzle, no one can tell. It was soon after taken by the Fremont men 
and thrown into the Clifton Mill pond, where it remained until mid-winter, when a 
West Village saloon-keeper and his patriotic customers turned out one cold night and 
made diligent search up and down the cold stream until they found and transferred it 
to a safe hiding place, where it was kept ready for renewed use in the Spring, to cele- 
brate the election of General Pratt for Governor. His opponent was elected, and the 
gun wasn't wanted. It was liable to be discovered in its hilling place, so the party in 
possession again buried it in an unknown grave, where it is said to remain to this day. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 245 

With very limited accessions of population from abroad, and a continued 
though diminished drainage by emigration to the West ; and witli a soil 
growing less productive from generation to generation, it has made little, 
if any, gain in its aggregate wealth and productiveness, and has diminished 
in numbers. In its general tone of morals there has been little, if any, 
deterioration, though in. Sabbath observances and attendance on public 
worship there has been a great falling off from the old puritan standard. 
Excitements and dissensions, some of them of a very serious nature, have 
arisen and died away. Religious institutions, sometimes greatly im- 
periled, now stand on a solid basis of unity and piety. No intoxicating 
liquors are openly sold, and few intemperate men are found. Education 
is in advance of the average of retired communities around it ; property 
is more equally distributed now than it was twenty years ago, and the 
condition of the Society is prosperous and happy. 

The new inhabitants appearing on the stage from year to year grow 
less frequent. We proceed to notice them in their order. 

Apollos Dean seems to have been a resident from 1810 for several 
years ; whether married or single is not ascertained. He may have been 
a tanner or shoemaker in the employ of the Wades, from whom he 
received a conveyance of land in 1823, in which he is named of Boston, 
Portage Co., Ohio. 

Joseph Eggleston, probably from Torrington, was a resident from 
1810 to 1815, but not a land owner. His place of residence not 
ascertained. 

James Bragg came into the town from Springfield, Vt., in 1812. In 
1820 he became the owner of the William Chamberlin farm, one and a 
half miles northerly from the center, on which he lived till a short time 
before his death, January 30, 1871, aged 88. He married 1807, Susanna, 
daughter of Daniel H. Cone; she died February 11, 1816, in her 34th 
year, and he married (2d), 1821, Orpha, daughter of Wait Munson, of 
Barkhamsted ; she. died November 18, 1868, aged 76. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Daniel Huri.kut, b. September 6, 1808; m. Lavinia Gould of East 
Granby. He m. (2d) Gracy N. Calvert of Lexington, Ky., where he 
(1. in 1847. 
II. Wahren, I). February 13, 1810; in. Julia, daughter of Deacon Warren 
Cone, lie m. (2d) Almira Gray of Sauquoit, N. Y. 

III. Clarissa, b. December 22, 1811 ; m. Henry Griswold of Hartland. 

IV. Mahy, b. April 19, 1813; d. December 28, 1813. 
V. James, b. September 27, 1814 ; d. October 5, 1819. 



246 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

VI. Julia Lucketia, b. November 10, 1823 ; m. Frank L. Whiting of 

Torrington. 
VII. Mart Elizabeth, b. December 5, 1824; m. Rufus T. Towne of New 
Hartford. 
VIII. Hulbah, b. February 20, 1826 ; m. Deacon Samuel C. Newton of 

Hartland. 
IX. Sarah, b. August 15, 1831 ; m. Henry M. Smith of Fairfield, a 

retired New York merchant. 
X. James Lorenzo, b. February 24, 1833; m. Eliza, daughter of Hiram 
Sage of Colebrook. He m. (2d), Sarah Spaulding, daughter of A. A. 
Spaulding of Norfolk. 

Doctor Zephania Swift married Nellie Minerva, daughter of 
Doctor Josiah Everitt of Winchester, and resided in the house recently 
owned by Samuel Hurlbut 2d, :it the center, which lie sold, and 
removed to Farmington before 1819, where he died. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Helen Abigail, born in Winchester July 10, 1814 ; other children were born 
to them after they left this town. Mrs. Swift still survives, living with 
a daughter, in New York or Brooklyn. To her the compiler of these 
annals is indebted largely for aid and encouragement in tracing out old 
families and delineating ancient customs. 



Luman Whiting, third son of Christopher Whiting of Winchester, 
came of age May 5, 1813, and occupied his father's homestead until his 
removal to Ashtabula County, Ohio, about 1815. He married Anna, 
daughter of Samuel Hayden, Esq., of Barkhamsted. 

Moses Drake and Moses Drake, Jr., of Torrington, in 1813 
bought the farm of Oliver Coe, at the south end of Blue street, and 
occupied it during their remaining lives. Moses Drake, Sen., died July 
3, 1831, aged 80, and Moses Drake, Jr., April 10, 1859, aged 71, leaving 
sons, Henry, who lives on the homestead, Martin V., who lives in Goshen, 
:ii id several daughters. 

Edward Griswoed and Phineas Griswold, Jr., owned and 
occupied after the death of Phineas, senior, in 1815, the farm next west 
of the Danbury school house, on the Norfolk Road, until 1822. Phineas 
Griswold was named in their deed as of Beaver Dam, P>ie Co., Penn. 

Lewis Hart from Colebrook, purchased the above farm from the 
Griswolds in 1822, and occupied it until 1826, and then sold to Samuel 
D. Gilbert. He afterwards removed to Ohio, whence he returned to 
Colebrook about. L860, and died there in 1866. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 247 



CHILDKEN. 



I. Elm ira, b. October 23, IS Hi. 

II. William, 1>. September 12, 181!). 

III. Lucy-, b. September 17, 1821. 

IV. Erastus S. 



Samuel D. Gilbert came to Winchester when a boy, and resided 
here during his after life. In 1826 he bought of Lewis Hart the above- 
mentioned farm, and occupied it until his death, August 24, 1844, aged 
4G. He married May 19, 1819, Candace, daughter of Reuben Hunger- 
ford of Winchester; she died June 17, 1840, aged 42. 

They left three sons, Newman B., Lyman, and Charles, and two 
daughters, who are wives of Erastus S. Hart, late of Canton, and Riley 
Grant, of Norfolk. 

Charles Gilbert, son of Samuel D., was wounded and taken prisoner in 
the battle of Secessionville, S. C, and died of his wounds in prison at 
Charleston, aged 29, unmarried. 

Ebenezer Cowles, from Norfolk, kept the Green Woods Turnpike 
Toll Gate, from 1816, for several years, and made coal baskets to eke 
out a living. He was a zealous religionist of the ultra Calvinistic school, 
— had a wife and two daughters. 

Joel Clark is on the tax lists from 1816 to 1830. No real estate is 
found in his name, and his place of residence is not ascertained. No rec- 
ord of his family. 

Henry Dayton, from Torrington, in 1816, owned and occupied a 
house and tannery in the south part of the Society, until 1824. 

Benjamin Phelps, son of Daniel of W., is on the tax lists from 1816. 
In 1823, he bought, and afterwards occupied a farm on Brooks street, 
near the old Everitt place, until his death, July 12, 1849, aged 54. He 
m. Feb. 6, 1826, Abigail Brooks. 

Frederick Phelps, son of Daniel, of W., came of age June 30, 
1816, — owned and lived on land on Brooks street, near the old Everitt 
place, until his removal to Kinderhook, N. Y., not far from 1850, where 
he now resides. He m. May 22, 1826, Lucy W. Hurlbut, dau. of 
Stephen of W. 

Jonathan Saxton first appears on the tax list of 1816, and continues 
until his death, April 19, 1843, aged 66. He owned no real estate in 
the town. 



248 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Salmon Bail, son of a Hessian soldier, appears on the tax list of 1816. 
He lived in the society from that date to the time of his death, Sept. 30, 
1853, aged 68. He was not a land owner, and his place of residence is 
not known. His wife Ursula is named on his gravestone, but no date of 
death given. 

Jonathan F. Baldwin is on the tax lists of 1819, and onward to 
1821. He owned a blacksmith shop at the centre, which he sold in 1821, 
and then left the town. 

Randall Covky is on the tax lists from 1817 to 1821 ; and owned 
a wagon maker's shop at the Center, which he sold the latter year. 

George Chase, son of Gedeliah of W., married Artemisia, dau. of 
Oliver Coe; owned and occupied from 1819 to 1823, the house on the 
north side of the Norfolk road, next west of the Center District school 
house. 

Dudley Chase, son of Gedeliah, of W., came of age Aug. 30, 1817 ; 

in. Simsbury, Sept. 27, 1826, Electa , b. Simsbury, Feb. 13, 1800. 

He settled first in Goshen, and since 1831, has lived on the farm where he 
now resides, on the road from the Center to Hall Meadow. He repre- 
sented the town in the Legislature of 1858. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Nathan, b. Goshen, Oct. 21, 1827 ; d. Feb. 3, 1856, unmarried. 

II. Henry E., b. G., June 3, 1820; drowned in N. J., March 19, 1S52. 

III. Maky A., b. G., Aug. 30, 1831 ; m. Rev. A. V. R. Abbott. 

IV. Erwin E. (twin), b. Nov. 8, 1834; m. Mary Commerford. 

V. A Son- " b. Nov. 8, 1834 ; d. Nov. 17, 1834. 
VI. Dudley, b. Oct. 19, 1838; d. April 30, 1839. 

VII. Ellen E., b. Feb. 1, 1840. 

Reuben Chase, son of Gedeliah, of W., in 1844 bought a house and 
land in the south part of the society, which he has since occupied to the 
present time. He was b. March 25, 1800 ; m. Oct. 17, 1823, Lucy, dau. 
of Asahel Curtis, b. Oct. 22, 1806. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Adeline, b. June 8, 1825 ; in. Mathew Hart of Goshen. 
II. Lucy E., b. Jan. 30, 1827. 

III. Harriet, b. Jan. 27, 1829; m. George II. Cook of Torrington; d. Nov. 

3, 1858. 

IV. Delia, b. March 21, 1832; m. May, 1868, Henry C. Church, New 

Haven. 
V. Harmon, b. Nov. 8, 1839; d. Nov. 21, 1839. 

VI. Laura, b. July 5, 1843 ; m. Lemuel Munger of Torrington. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 249 

Sheldon Miller, son of George of Winchester, came of age Nov. 
10, 1820; m. Oct. 30, 1822, Jerusha Ann Starkweather; lived in the 
Society until after 1825,and removed to Tyringharn, Mass. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lewis Allen, b. in W., Nov. 3, 1823. 
II. George Hudson, b. in W., June 24, 1825. 

III. Henry Elijah, h. in Tyringharn, Mass., April 18, 1830. 

IV. Laura. Ann, b. in Lenox, Mass., Aug-. 29, 1832. 

V. Mary Maria, b. in Lenox, Mass., Dec. 6, 1841 ; d. March 23, 1842. 

VI. Mary Jerusha, b. in Lee, Mass., Jan. 13, 1844. 



Hiram Church, a native of Vernon, N. Y., and grandson of the first 
Samuel Hurlbut, — served his time as clerk to S. & L. Hurlbut, and con- 
tinued in their employ several years ; afterwards did business at St. 
Louis, and at Vernon, N. Y., and then returned to Winchester. He m. 
Nov. 7, 1838, Emily E. Eno. of Colebrook, who, after his death, m. Gail 
Borden, Esq., now of Texas. 

Samuel Bandle, a blacksmith, came from New Hartford ; m. a dau. 
of Samuel Hart of W. Lived in the Society several years, and then 
moved to Ohio. 

Willard Hart, son of Samuel, of Winchester; m. Dec. 11, 1822, 
Rhoda Matilda, dau. of Timothy Benedict, deceased, of W., and (2d), 
Maria, dau. of Daniel Andrews, Jr., of W. ; resided in Danbury Quar- 
ter ; d. May 5, 1840, aged 45, leaving a dau. Rhoda, by his first wife, who 
m. in 1848, William Miner, and d. leaving one child. By his second 
wife he had 

children. 

I. Sarah, b. Sept. — , 1829 ; m. Geo. G. Camp. 

II. Henry, b. 18 51 ; d. in 1846. 

III. Elizareth, b. in 1835 ; m. James G. Ferris. 

IV. Lewis, b. in 1837. 

V. Henrietta, b. 1839; m Nelson Beers. 

VI. Willard, 1). in 1840; m. May G, 18G0, Marietta Hill ; killed at 

Cold Harbor, Va., June 1, 1864, while in the Volunteer Service, as pri- 
vate in Company E., 2d Conn. Heavy Artillery. 

Rufus Drake, from Torrington, in 1823, bought the farm in Hall 
Meadow, on which he has since resided to the present time. 

Harvey Ford, m. June 2G, 1825, Mary Ann, dau. of Noah Drake, 
of Torrington. About 1830, he bought the farm, on Hall Meadow, 
which he has occupied till recently. 
32 



250 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

John M. Galagher, an Englishman, not far from 1825, began manu- 
facturing woollen cloths on the east branch of the Naugatuck River, in 
the south part of the Society, and removed from the town about 1830. 

Archibald Dayton, from Torrington, m. Jan. 1, 1827, Lophelia, widow 
of Levi Bronson, and during his remaining life, lived on Blue Street, 
near the Stone School House. He d. Nov. 28, 1863. His son, Isaac 
Dayton, now occupies the same place. 

"William S. Marsh, from Hartford, m. for his second wife, Sally, 
dan. of Richard Coit, — and moved to Winchester in 1825, where he re- 
sided, on the homestead of his father-in-law, until about 1834, when he 
removed to Canaan, and died there in 18G8. 

Daniel Beckley, son of Richard, Sr., of W., has occupied the for- 
mer residence of his father at the north end of Little Pond to the present 
time. 

Norris Beckly, son of Richard, of W., has resided from his child- 
hood, and still resides in tlie Society, mainly in Danbury Quarter. 

Oliver Loomis, from Torrington, bought the farm between the two 
lakes in 1827. and lived thereon until 1844, when he bought, and occupied 
during his remaining life, the second house west of Dudley's Tannery, on 
the north side of Main street, in Winsted, and died, childless, Feb. 7, 
1872, aged 84 years, 9 months, leaving the bulk of his estate to the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church and Society of Winsted, and a legacy of $1,000 
to the M. E. Church of Wolcottville. His wile, Mary (Barber) Loomis, 
d. March, 1870, aged 77 years. Mr. L. was a quiet, frugal citizen, of 
decided Methodistical and Anti-Slavery sentiment*. He was elected a 
representative to General Assembly in 1834, by a nearly unanimous vote 
of both political parties. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ROADS, PAUPERS, SELECTMEN, ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS, MANUFACTORIES, 
SEMINARIES, &c. 

FROM 1881 TO 1872. 

After reaching the matured growth of the Winchester Society, 
materials for continued annals have steadily diminished in variety and 
interest. A retired farming community, homogeneous in its composition, 
with its institutions in running order — so staid that deep ruts mark its 
pathway — furnishes few events worthy of record. Changes, imper- 
ceptible in their progress to a resident inhabitant, may become strikingly 
apparent to a former resident returning after long years of absence. He 
may find the possessions of the rich of one generation divided and 
diffused in another ; the overshadowing influence of one cla-s of men 
undermined, and another class or organization in the ascendant ; the all- 
engrossing dissensions of one period quieted, and new subjects of heart- 
burning and strife grown up in another. 

Such have been the course of events — of improvements and deteriora- 
tions — for the last forty years. We find no events of startling interest, 
no dissensions worthy of being resuscitated from the pall of oblivion, no 
special exhibitions of foul crime or eminent virtue. 

In the way of public improvements, the laying out and opening of 
several new roads, and the alterations of old ones, are worthy of men- 
tion, and preliminary thereto it is fitting to advert to the conservalive 
and narrow-sighted policy of the town in reference to roads and bridges. 
This pig-headedness may have had its origin in the heavy expense to 
which the early settlers were subjected in making their first roads by 
reason of the parsimonious allowances and reservations of lands for high 
ways by the proprietary body, which has been referred to in our earlier 
annals. Sectional jealousies of the two societies may also have had an 
influence in fostering opposition to improvements tending to specially 
benefit one section more than the other. Whatever may have been the 
remote causes, the effect was a prevailing hostility to almost every pro- 
posed improvement. If a road was laid out by the selectmen and 



252 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

reported to the town, however important it might be for public conve- 
nience and necessity, if it promised a sectional benefit it was blindly- 
voted down, regardless of the certainty of its being ultimately carried 
through and established by appeal to the county court. 

Notable instances of this nature are found in the now traveled roads 
from Winsted to Wolcottville, and to Colebrook center, the first having 
been contested with blind obstinacy and reckless expense from 1822 to 
1826, and the second from about 1830 to 1835. In both of these cases 
litigation was kept up, and long trials without number were had before 
the court and its delegated committees, at an expense in each instance 
exceeding the actual cost of the roads when finally constructed. Add to 
this the point blank, contradictory swearing by platoons and battalions of 
excited witnesses, the pettifogging tricks of counsel unlearned in the 
laws of fair dealing, and the vindictive hatreds engendered among 
neighbors, and the evils cannot be over-estimated. 

The old roads from Winchester to "Winsted were precipitous and cir- 
cuitous beyond the average of original layings out of roads. A shorter 
and every way better route was apparent to every observer. A new 
road over this route was advocated from time to time early in this 
century, but was strenuously opposed by influential parties favoring 
entire non-intercourse rather than free access between the rival sections. 
In 1836 the selectmen were instructed to report this or some other 
better route for a road. Some sinister influence, or non-agreement of 
the board, prevented any lay-out being reported at that time, and the 
■matter rested until after the opening of the Naugatuck Railroad to 
Winsted, when, in 1853, the selectmen laid out and reported a road 
along the south border of the Little Pond, and onward to near the 
General Hurlbut place, with alterations of the existing roads connecting 
at each end of the new lay-out. This report, according to ancient usage, 
was summarily rejected in town meeting. Application was soon after 
made to the court for a road along this line, which was referred to the 
county commissioners in 1855. The commissioners of that year proved 
to be men of more than ordinary judgment and independence. They 
laid out the new road and alterations of the connecting roads in a way 
that can hardly be in any way improved. The distance saved is nearly 
half a mile, while the grades are far better than on the old routes. The 
lay-out was accepted, and the work completed. 

In 1871 a connecting link with these improvements was made by laying 
out a new road, known as Boyd street, from the Connecticut Western 
Railroad Station, northerly and westerly to the old road above the 
Stabell place, thereby avoiding the long and steep ascent of Lake street 
to the lake outlet. This road was accepted, and is now completed, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 253 

opening an avenue of easy and pleasant communication between the two 
Societies heretofore greatly needed, and promising a freer communication 
and fellowship of the two sections. 

About 1830, a new road was laid out and accepted, running westerly 
from the Norfolk or Cooper Lane road, by the residences of Orrin 'fuller 
and Dudley Chase, to a new north and south road, along Hall Meadow 
in Goshen, which in 1831 was discontinued without being opened. It 
was soon afterward re-laid, either by the town or by order of Court, and 
opened to travel, — affording a long desired, and important avenue of 
intercourse with Goshen, Cornwall, and the Housatonic Valley. 

In 1838, a new road was petitioned for, to run from the Center, south- 
erly and easterly, by the house of Elias T. Hatch, near the south border 
of Long Lake, and thence in the direction of the Pine Knot, near the 
line of the Naugatuck Railroad, — to connect with a new proposed road 
through the south end of New Hartford to Canton. The town, according 
to usage, rejected the Winchester section, as did the town of Torrington 
the section within its borders; — whereupon the petitioners applied to 
the County Court, and got a committee, which made short work of lay- 
ing out a line of roads, and improvements on the proposed route, which 
were confidently expected, by the projectors, to divert the Albany and 
Hartford travel from the old time route through Winsted, to this new 
thoroughfare. The road was petitioned for to the Court, laid and ac- 
cepted, during the smoke of the great battle then raging over the Cole- 
brook Road, without serious opposition from any quarter. The com- 
mittee is reported to have carried with them a jug of rum, while 
examining the route and laying the road, which accounts for the profound 
wisdom of portions of their lay-out. The road has never fulfilled the 
sanguine expectations of its projectors, but has nevertheless vindicated 
its necessity and convenience. 

Improvements and changes have been made in many other roads of the 
Society ; but the greatest and most beneficial change has been wrought 
by the entire abandonment of the old system of repairing highways, by 
a wretched system of labor-taxation, inherited from " the fathers." At- 
tempts were more than once made to get rid of it by allotment of sections 
of roads to individual contractors, and by money taxes ; but this system 
failed to work satisfactorily, and others were tried -until the annual town 
meeting in 18G0, when it was voted, "that a thorough man be appointed 
in each district to repair the roads therein, and that the men so appointed 
bring in their bills for such repairs to the Selectmen for payment." 
This vote led to the most thorough repair and improvement of roads 



254 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

ever made in the town ; yet the process did not prove so expensive as to 
prevent its being repeated with good results, until the annual meeting in 
1865, when a commissioner was appointed in each society to supervise 
the repairs, under such a limitation of expense as not to exceed two 
thousand dollars for the whole town. The result was a partial repair of 
the Old Society roads, and an almost total neglect of those in Winsted. 
The same course was adopted in 1866, without a limitation of expenses, 
and repeated in 1867 and 1868, — when the appointment of district road 
masters was given to the select men, and so continued to 1870, when the 
entire supervision of the roads was restored to the selectmen, and it has 
continued in their hands to the present time. 

Up to about 1850 the model selectman, — however fair, honorable, and 
humane he may have been in his private transactions, seemed to become 
penurious and heartless when invested with this dignity. A capacity to 
systematize the affairs of the town, and to manage them with a view to 
general and permanent advantage, was held in small estimation. It was 
not supposable that he could, at the end of the year, render an intelligent 
account of his doings or do-nothings. Me entered on his duties with an 
abiding fear of indiscriminate censure or' any liberal act or comprehensive 
policy. At the year's end his report was criticised, and his doings were 
scanned without reason or mercy. Lucky was he, if his report was so 
blind as to cover up his mismanagement, and conceal the true financial 
condition of the town. He thereby stood a chance of re-election, and 
ultimately of representing the incapacity of the town in the General 
Assembly. 

On the other hand, instances have occurred of the election of indepen- 
dent, straight-forward men, who have blasted out obtruding rocks from 
the roads, or built permanent bridges, or kindly provided for the poor ; 
or, worst of all, have investigated the financial affairs of the town, and 
produced a reliable balance sheet, showing a before unknown amount of 
indebtedness. Rarely, in former times, did such offences as these escape 
the penalty of deposition from office. 

It has rarely been the wont of our town to avail itself of the experi- 
ence of a competent selectman, by continuing him in office for a long 
course of years as in many other towns. The darling principles of rota- 
tion in office, and the maxim that to the party victors belong the spoils, 
alike forbade it. 

These strictures, though applied specially to our own town, doubtless 
have a general application to many of the towns around us. 

In many respects, improvement has become manifest in our affairs. 
The financial condition of the town is clearly made known in printed 
reports, from year to year. There is a readiness to vote the taxes that 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 255 

are clearly seen to be needful. The principle of cash payments of cur- 
rent expenses is established. About fifty-six thousand dollars of war 
loans have been paid off, and the financial condition of the town is pros- 
perous. 

But rare allusions have been made in our annals to the system, or 
rather want of system, of providing for the poor. We have quoted a few 
early instances of bringing these unfortunates to the auction block and of 
summarily attempting to vote them out of the town guardianship. Such 
cases are rarely found. As a rule the wants of the poor have been 
supplied at their own dwellings, or places have been provided for them 
in private ftuuilies in the vicinity of their previous residences. 

About 1845 the system of contracting with some responsible individual 
of approved character, to provide for all the poor of the town, either in 
his own family or at their dwellings, was initiated, and was continued un- 
til 1871. Few well founded complaints of unkind treatment by contrac- 
tors have been made. The selectmen have been required to make month- 
ly inspections and careful inquiries as to the treatment of the poor ; and 
the ministers in charge of the different denominations have been invited 
by votes of the town to perform the same duties. 

This course of management has not been pursued without a conscious- 
ness on the part of the community of its evils and abuses. The records 
of the last fifty years abound with votes instructing the Selectmen to take 
measures for selecting and purchasing a town farm, and other votes ap- 
pointing special committees for the same purpose; — but no selection and 
recommendation was ever sanctioned by approval of the town until the 
month of dune of the present year (1872), when the Whiting form, on the 
east border of the town, was purchased, and is hereafter to be used, under 
the direction of the town as a home for the poor. The buildings are well 
adapted to the purpose ; and it is devoutly to be hoped that a competent 
and humane manager will be selected and such preparations made, as will 
give a fair start and ensure a successful working of the institution. It is 
also to be hoped and devoutly prayed for, that whether or not, worthy or 
unworthy, members of any of our churches are consigned to this refuse, 
their associated followers of Him who went about doing good will imitate 
His example, by conscientiously and systematically visiting and minis- 
tering to the needs and comforts of the destitute and forsaken.* 



* The following obituary notice of a worthy member of one of our churches who had 
for several years of poverty and disease, been an inmate of the poor-house, appeared in 
the Winsted Herald of December 9, 18<'4. It needs no comment. "Exchanged his 
poverty for eternal riches, and his rags for a crown which fadeth not away — at the 
Winchester poor-house, Nov. 5, 1804, James C Smith, aged 67. The pall-bearers 
were few on this side — not so many perhaps as they that waited on the 'shining 
shore,' and went up with the old man to ' his Father's house.'" 



256 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Returning from this disquisition of town affairs, to the closing of our 
annals of the Old Society of Winchester, we find little more of history to 
be compiled ; while the sources from which to compile family records are 
exhausted. 

A noteworthy and creditable feature characterizing the Society, has 
been, and continues to be, the permanence, amid all divisions and excite- 
ments, of the Congregational Order, and the absence of all other organized 
denominations. At Noppit, beyond the Torrington border, — where Mr. 
Hungerford threatened going to get religion, — the fathers of the Drakes, 
Fylers, Norths, and others, were Baptists ; and early erected a meeting 
bouse for their order. Tbe Methodists, in process of time, became nu- 
merous, and the two orders united in enlarging, repairing, and adding a 
steeple to the Baptist house, under an arrangement that each order should 
use it on alternate Sabbaths. This plan worked well until the Methodist 
quarterly meeting occurred on the Baptists' Sabbath, and they of that 
persuasion refused to yield their right of worship for tbe exigency. At the 
fever heat of the resulting odium theohgicum, • — a new Methodist Church, 
with steeple and bell, was erected over the way. The process was the 
reverse of that of Peter Pinder's farmer, who burned his barn to kill the 
rats, but was equally unwise ; — for there were now two barns to shelter 
the vermin of sectarianism ; and the scant ability to sustain one house of 
worship became divided and utterly inadequate for the two. The Bap- 
tists have dwindled down to the shadow of a name, and the Methodists, 
overshadowed by the rising order of Adventists, yielded their house to 
the ownership and control of that persuasion about 1850. This new 
Evangel, for a few years, was gladly received by large numbers, and re- 
ligious zeal pervaded the whole community. Both meeting houses be- 
came crowded with Sabbath worshipers, and continued so for a few 
years, when the flame of devotion and sectarianism died away leaving 
both houses permanently empty and dilapidated. 

Only a few of these "sectarians" lived in Winchester, so that the 
Congregational order was slightly affected by their controversies. Rev. 
Father Marsh, amid many trials growing out of internal dissensions of 
his Church, pursued the even tenor of his way sole pastor until 1846, 
when Rev. James H. Dill, a graduate of Yale College and Theological 
Seminary, was ordained as his colleague pastor, and was so continued until 
October 2, 1851, when they were both dismissed at their own request 
The pulpit was then supplied for a year or more by Rev. Alexander Cun- 
ningham, and afterwards by various ministers until October 1857, when 
Rev. Ira Pettibone, formerly pastor of the First Winsted Church, was in- 
stalled its pastor, and officiated as such until his removal to Stafford, 
Connecticut, in 1866. He was succeeded by Rev. Wm. M. Gay, as a 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



257 



supply, for one year. On the 28th of December, 1870, Rev. Arthur 
Goodenough, the present worthy pastor, was installed, Rev. Mr. Petti- 
bone having been on the same day formally dismissed. 

The present state of the Church and Society appears more auspicious 
than for many past years. 

In addition to the district schools in various parts of the Society, an 
academic school was for several years sustained at the center, under the 
successive charges of the late Silas H. McAlpine, Robert M. Beebee, 




WINCHESTER INSTITUTE. 



Henry Norton, James Coe, and others, in the lecture room of the Church. 
In 1858 Rev. Ira Pettibone, aided by other citizens of the Society, erected 
a commodious seminary building on an elevated site, immediately north 
of the village, which he opened as a boarding and day school, under the 
name of " The Winchester Institute," in conducting which he was 
assisted by his sons, Colonel Ira W. and Benjamin ~W. Pettibone, gradu- 
ates of Yale and Amherst Colleges. The former entered the service in 
33 



258 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

1862, as Major of the 10th Regt. Conn. Volunteers, and served in the 
North Carolina campaign, was promoted to Colonel, — and on his resig- 
nation, caused by constant ill-health, he assumed the entire management 
of the school and successfully conducted it until his removal to Beloit 
College, Illinois, as principal of the preparatory department of that insti- 
tution. 

In 1869 the Seminary grounds and buildings were purchased by Mrs. 
Sabra Blake, and her daughter, Mrs. Mary Ann Mitchell, and were by 
them conveyed to seven trustees and their successors, " for the purpose of 
sustaining, carrying on, and maintaining a Seminary of learning similar to 
the Institute now and heretofore carried on in the conveyed premises and 
to possess all the powers necessary for that purpose." Since this pur- 
chase and dedication, the Seminary has been conducted by J. Walker 
McBeth, Esq., a graduate of Edinburgh University and an experienced 
educator, under whose auspices it is hoped that such a degree of success 
will be attained as will induce other wealthy citizens of the town to make 
similar endowments, and thereby raise the present standard of education 
among us. 

The streams adapted to water power run through the northern and 
southwestern parts of the Society ; and none of them are large and per- 
manent enough for large manufacturing purposes. No grist-mill was 
ever erected in the Society. The early settlers had their grinding done 
at a mill in the northwestern corner of Torrington, until Austin's mill was 
erected in Winsted. 

The first saw mill was built by Deacon Samuel Wetmore, near the bu- 
rial ground, with a privilege of flowing the meadow and marsh land bor- 
dering the stream above. It was early moved down the' stream to a point 
near the site of the first meeting-house ; and, at a later period, was moved 
further down to the site of the McAlpine mill, below the junction of the 
east and west brandies. A saw mill was early erected on Mad River, near 
Norfolk line, on the site of the Martin and Nelson Brooks mill ; and 
another, long since abandoned, on the same stream, near the Danbury 
school-house. The Trumbull Brooks mill, still lower down the stream, 
was first built early in the present century. Another saw mill was built 
on Sucker Brook in the last century by Samuel Clark, Christopher Whit- 
ing, and others ; and still another on the same site was erected by 
McPherson Hubbell, about 1848, which has now disappeared. Few 
branches of manufacturing have ever been undertaken in the Society, and 
none of them have been permanently successful. Dish and trencher mills 
were appendages of most of the early saw mills, for working up the slabs 
into primitive household utensils. The last one in the town, standing im- 
mediately west of Meadow street bridge, ceased operation as early as 1804. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 259 

A fulling mill is said to have been erected about 1776 by Daniel or 
Joseph Piatt, on the small stream running north and emptying into Mad 
River, at the mill dam of Trumbull Brooks. Samuel Clark built a trip- 
hammer works for welding gun-barrels, late in the last century, on Sucker 
Brook, just below the Dugway bridge. A bark mill, connected with the 
Amasa Wade tannery, on the Naugatuck Branch, near Torrington line, 
was erected early in the present century. The tannery went into new 
hands about 1844, and was essentially enlarged and improved in capacity 
and business, but was abandoned as a tannery about 1850, and was after- 
wards used for a time in manufacturing cheese boxes. Another tannery 
and bark mill was erected early in this century by Elijah Blake, senior, 
and carried on after him by his son, Deacon Allen Blake, now deceased. 
It stood on Taylor's Brook, and is now abandoned. Early in this century, 
John McAlpine erected a shop on the east branch, near the burying 
ground, for cutting scale boards used in packing cheese in casks for mar- 
keting, which continued in operation until the packing of cheeses in sepa- 
rate boxes superseded the old method. In 1814 John Nash, James Beebe, 
and Dr. Zephenia Swift erected a clothiers' works, carding-machine, and 
fulling mill on the Naugatuck branch, between the McAlpine saw mill 
and the Wade tannery, which was operated a few years by Alva Nash, 
then sold to John Galagher, who introduced power looms, and went into the 
manufacture of broadcloths and satinets. David Bird succeeded Galagher 
in the business, and formed a joint stock company which operated the con- 
cern in a small way until the establishment was burned down about 1860. 

Prior to 1825, all the usual handicraft trades, such as blacksmiths, 
tanners and shoemakers, joiners and carpenters, tailors, hatters, coopers, 
wheelwrights, &c, were carried on and sustained in the society; but since 
that period, in consequence of the growth of Winsted, most of them have 
been abandoned. 

From almost the beginning of the century to the year 1857 a large 
portion of the mercantile and produce business of the Society was trans- 
acted by the brothers Samuel and Lemuel Hurlbut, who early placed their 
business on a solid basis, and enlarged it by transactions beyond the line 
of ordinary country traders, identifying their interests with those of the 
community around them, and sustaining its rights and privileges against 
all outside rivalries. For a long course of years, before Winsted had be- 
gun to abound in wealthy men, they were the bankers of this region, and 
especially so of the dairy farmers requiring loans for the purchase and stock- 
ing of their farms. We have already in another place analyzed their 
characters and capacities, and referred to their introduction of improved 
breeds of sheep and cattle. On their deaths, occurring within a year of 



260 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. ' 

each other, their large business was wound up, and their property distrib- 
uted among numerous and widely-scattered heirs. 

Compared with other farming communities around us, Old Winchester 
and the agricultural portions of Winsted are favored in a high degree with 
a distribution of wealth approaching equality, a freedom from embarras- 
sing debt, good education largely diffused, temperate habits, refined morals, 
and intelligent patriotism. 






Wlnsted Society and Borough. 



CHAPTER XX. 

WINSTED SOCIETY— FIRST SETTLERS AND FAMILY RECORDS. 

As already stated in our preliminary account of the township, the open- 
ing of the Old North Road was soon followed by a settlement in the 
northeast corner of the town, distinct and distant from the earlier settle- 
ment in the southwest section, to which our attention has thus far been 
directed. Long Lake, and the mountain ridges extending from its north 
end to Colebrook line effectually separated these communities from each 
other, until near the close of the last century; when the improvement of 
the splendid water power along the Lake Stream, and at the Still River 
falls, gradually drew settlers to the intermediate region. The Winsted 
settlement began some twenty years later than that of the old society. 
The records show but four resident land owners there in 1771, when the 
town was incorporated ; and none of their names are found on the peti- 
tion for the incorporation. 



1770. 

Lieut. John Wright, from Wethersfield to Goshen in 1740, came 
thence to Winsted, it is believed in 17G9 or 1770, and settled, with his 
large family, on the northeast side of the old North road, near Colebrook 
line, on the site of the homestead now occupied by Edward and Edwin 
Rowley. His title of Lieutenant is said to have been acquired during 
his service in the French War. His will was proved in the Norfolk 
Probate Court, Dec. 24, 1784, in which are named his wife Dorcas, and 
his children, John, Jr., Jabez, Charles, Freedom, Dorcas, Mary, and Lu- 
cia. L. M. Norton, in his Goshen Genealogies, names Samuel, David, 
and Moses, as sons of Lieut. John. The relative age of their children 
is not ascertainable. His wife was probably a dau. of Benjamin Dem- 
ing, of Goshen. 

Samuel Wright, son of John, Sen., probably born at Wethersfield, 



264 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

lived and died at Goshen. L. M. Norton gives his children, born in 
Goshen, as follows : 

CHILDREN. 

I. Josiah, b. April 1, 1753. 

II. Ozias, b. Sept. 1, 1755 ; d. young. 

III. Abigail, b. Jan. 8, 1757. 

IV. Ozias, b. Feb. 18, 1759. 

V. Andrew, b. March 17, 1763. 

Moses Wright, son of John, Sen., is probably the same Moses 
Wright who lived and died in Colebrook, and was father to Norton 
Wright, who formerly lived near the Old Hemlock Meeting-house, in 
Winsted, and Alvin Wright of Colebrook, who d. May, 1866. 

David Wright, son of John, Sen., is not noted on the Winchester 
Records as an inhabitant, though he probably came to the town with his 
father. He enlisted into Capt. Sedgwick's company in 1775, and while 
on the march to the Northern frontier, died of the camp distemper, at 
Lanesborough, Mass., unmarried. 

John Wright, Jr. probably came to Winsted with his father. He 
lived immediately east of his father, on the old North road, until his re- 
moval in 1801, to Morgan, Ohio. He m. Aug. 14, 1770, Lydia Mason, 
who d. Nov. 11, 1771. He m. (2d), March 24, 1774, Sarah, dau. of 
Lieut. Asahel Case, of Norfolk, by whom he had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lydia Mason, b. Jan. 19, 1775. 

II. David, b. Aug. 16, 1778; d. Sept. 1, 1784. 

III. John, b. Jan. 11, 1780. 

IV. Amos Case, b. Sept. 5, 1782 ; m. Lydia, dau. of Rev. Aaron Kinney. 
V. Sally, b. April 16, 1785. 

VI. David, b. July 27, 1787. 
VII. Alpha, b. Dec. 26, 1789. 

VIII. An Infant, b. April 25, 1791. 

Charles Wright probably came from Goshen to Winsted about 
1775, and lived near his father until his removal in 1801, to Jefferson 
Co., N. Y. He served as Sergeant in Capt. Sedgwick's company, on the 
northern frontier, in 1775. He m. Nov. 11, 1767, Ruth Smith. 

children. 

I. Tyrannus, b. Goshen, March 20, 1 768 ; probably died young. 

II. Sarah, b. Jan. 29, 1770. 

III. Charles, b. July 28, 1774. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 265 

IV. Stephen, b. Aug. 18, 1776; bap. July 30, 1797. 

V. Tyagustds, b. Feb. G, 1779 ; bap. July 30, 1797. 

VI. Ruth, b. April 30, 1781 ; bap. July 30, 1797. 

VII. Erastus, b. ; d. Aug. 28, 1786. 

VIII. Erastus, b. May 28, 1787 ; bap. July 30, 1797. 

IX. Chester, b. Nov. 10, 1789; bap. July 30, 1797. 

X. Nathan, b. May 17, 1792 ; bap. July 30, 1797. 

XI. Matthew Miles, bap July 30, 1797. 



Capt. Freedom Wright became a land holder in 1777, and lived 
and kept a tavern in the house now burned down, recently owned by 
Albert Kelsey and wife, in the same neighborhood with his father and 
brothers. He removed to Jefferson Co., N. Y., about 1801. He was a 
soldier in Capt. Sedgwick's company. He m. Sept. 1, 1777, Anna Hor- 
ton. She d. Sept. 18, 1788, and' he m, (2d), Aug. 10, 1789, Phebe 
Turner. She d. in 1793. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Asa Douglass, b. Sept. 18, 1778. 
II. Jabez, b. Feb. 6, 1780. 

III. Lucy, b. March 29, 1782; m. Abijah Wilson, Jr. 

IV. Abigail, b. July 6, 1784. 

V. Freedom, b. Sept. 25, 1787 ; d. same day. 

VI. Freedom, b. Sept. 13, 1788; d. same day. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

VII. Anna, b. March 1G, 1790. 

VIII. Freedom, b. Sept. 29, 1791 ; d. Oct. 20, 1791. 

IX. Freedom, b. Oct. 6, 1792. 



Lucia or Lucy Wright, a dan. of John Wright, Sen., named in his 
will, m. Elijah Rockwell, Esq., first Justice of the Peace and Town Clerk 
of Col eb rook, and was the grandmother of John T. Rockwell, of Win- 
sted. She was b. Oct. 7, 1756. 

The Wrights were a highly intelligent, studious family ; supporters of 
religion and good order, and earnest patriots in the revolutionary 
struggle. 

1771. 

Ebenezeb Siif.paiu), from Goshen, this year bought lands bordering 
on Colebrook line, on the road to Colebrook, by way of. Nelson Beards- 
ley's, on which he lived until 1775, when he sold out to David Crissey, 

34 



266 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

and moved into Colebrook. He served in Capt. Sedgwick's company on 
the northern frontier, in 1775. Wife, Mercy. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Prudence, b. June 8, 1771. 
II. Caroline, b. July 26, 1773. 

John Balcom, Jr., from Mansfield, Windham Co.. came into the 
town this year ; he owned and lived on a lot oi land east of Still River, 
nearly opposite the Horace Eowley place, and lived in a log house on the 
hill, adjoining Barkhamsted line. He lived in Winchester as late as 
1808, and was of Sidney, Delaware Co., N. Y., in 1810, as appears by 
his conveyances on record. He m. Jan. 1, 1783, Lois Hudson. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Zilpha, b. Oct. 18, 1783; bap. July 22, 1784. 

II. Lois, b. May 22, 1785; bap. June 18, 1786. 

III. Ebenezer, b. June 15, 1786; bap. June 18, 1786. 

IV. Elizabeth, bap. Sept. 1, 1790. 

V. Una Vilda, bap. in Wd. Ch., Sept. 1, 1790. 



1772. 

John Balcom, Sen., is named of Winchester, in a deed of this year, 
conveying to him Lot 10, 2d Division, next south of the Daniel B. Wil- 
s on farm. He lived in a log house on the old North road, a little easterly 
of the Henry Dowd place. The Land Records show that he had sons : 
John, Jr., Jonathan, and Nathaniel. His wife's death in 1797, is noted in 
the Church Records. He renewed his church covenant in 1800, — and 
probably died in the town, though no record of his death is found. 

Jonathan Balcom, son of John, Sr., lived on Wallen's hill, between 
Roswell Smith's and Joel Meade's. The inventory of his. estate was re- 
turned to Norfolk Probate Court September 6, 1790. Administration to 
his widow, Molly ; — distribution to his sons John, Jr., and Nathaniel, 
and to his daughters Keziah (who died unmarried), Mary, wife of 
Gates, Rhoda, Trena, wife of Seth Goodrich, and Esther (who died un- 
married). 

Nathaniel Balcom, son of John, Sr., lived on the homestead of his 
father until 1813 or 1814, when he removed to Wayne County, Pennsyl- 
vania. He married, September 2, 1782, Lois McEntire. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 267 



CHILDREN. 

I. Francis, b. 

II. Nathan, b. May 9, 1787. 

III. Jonathan, b. Aug. 18, 1791; enlisted in the war of 1812. 

IV. Silas, b. 

Ellas Balcom is named of Winchester in 1774. In 1776 he had 
some interest in the mill lot and the corn-mill, saw-mill, and dwelling- 
house thereon, which he quit-claimed to Stephen Chubb, of New Hart- 
ford. The nature of his ownership does not appear on the records. He 
then resided on the premises, and had probably erected the mills and 
dwelling on some arrangement with the proprietors of Winchester, who 
afterwards granted to Stephen Chubb, Jr., a lease of the lot for 900 
years. 

Jacob and Joseph, sons of Elias Balcom, were baptized in the Win- 
chester Church in November, 1775. — The former is said to have carried 
on horseback the earliest mail between Hartford and Albany. 

Elias Cabit Balcom (probably son of Elias above), married, Decem- 
ber 30, 1782, Mary Dickinson. 

CHILD. 
I. Sarah, b. Feb. 6, 1786. 

Nathan Balcom died August 7, 1808, aged 84. 

1773. 

John Austin, of Winchester, is this year grantor of thirty acres of 
land, extending from the east shore of Long Lake to first tier line, and 
embracing parts of Rockwell and Prospect streets, and the Naugatuck 
Railroad depot grounds, which he sold in 1779. There is an ancient cel- 
lar on the east side of East Lake street on this land, which may have 
been his residence. 

Abel Hoskin, from Windsor, this year bought a lot, now a part of 
the farm of Anson Fosket, and lived thereon until after 1787. In 1790 
he lived in Hartland. 

Josiah Smith, from Wethersfield, owned, lived, and died on the 
farm, on the old Still River turnpike, now owned by Horace Rowley. 
He was a founder and one of the first Deacons of the Congregational 



268 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Church of Winsted, from which he withdrew during the dissensions in 
Rev. Mr. Woodworth's time, and became a member and Deacon of the 
Baptist Church then founded in the northeast corner of the town. He 
married, June 17, 1770, Elizabeth Merrill. She died November 26, 
1829, aged 85 ; he died September 28, 1824, aged 81. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Salome, b. Oct. 12, 1770; m. Amasa Mallory. 

II. Sarah, b. Jan. 5, 1772 ; m. Feb. 13, 1794, Elisha Mallory, Jr. 

III. Josiah, b Jan. 9, 1775 ; d. Oct. 3, 1777. 

IV. Benjamin", b. Aug. 22, 1778. 
V. Truman, b. Nov. 22, 1780. 

VI. Josiah (twin), b. Aug. 29, 1784. 

VII. Elizabeth (twin), b. Aug. 29, 1784; m. Grandison Newell. 



Truman Smith, son of Deacon Josiah, lived with his father and con- 
tinued to occupy the homestead until after 1825, when he removed to 
Lenox, Ohio, where he died April 14, 1862, aged 81. He succeeded his 
father as Deacon of the Baptist Church. 

His son, Lurnan Smith, now resides in Winsted. 

Josiah Smith, Jr., lived in Winsted, and after 1810 was one of the 
Deacons of the Congregational Church till his removal to Windsor, after 
1834, where he died, s. p., January 1, 1852, aged 67. 

All of the members of this family were eminent for piety and good 
works. 



1774. 

Stephen Arnold's prior residence does not appear. In 1774 he 
bought of John Darbe forty-one acres of land on Wallen's hill, adjoining 
Barkhamsted line, now composing part of the farms of Sylvester Treat 
and Homer W. Whiting, on which he then lived. He sold out and prob- 
ably left the town in 1783. Wife, Lois. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Mart, b. Aug. 29, 1778. 

II. Stephen, b. Jan. 29, 1781. 

III. Lois, bapt. Nov. 9, 1782. 

Zebulon Siiepard, of New Hartford in 1773, of Winchester, Jan- 
uary 10, 1784, and of Barkhamsted, March 16, 1771, — was interested 
with Ebenezer Shepard in the Crissey farm on Colebrook line, and must 
have lived there, if he ever had a stated residence in the town. 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 269 

Phineas Potter, from Woodbury, owned land in the east village of 
Winsted, which embraced the Holabird place, and extended northward 
on North Main street to the late residence of John Camp, deceased. He 
first built a shanty against the large rock on Hinsdale street, near the 
Champion barn, and afterward built and lived in a house, now torn down, 
in rear of the ancient elm, where the Henry Champion house now stands. 
Tradition says that when Mr. Potter moved to Winsted. there was no 
road from the Old South road in Torringford to Winsted, and that on 
reaching the tavern of Landlord Burr (father of Russell and Milo), near 
the top of Hayden hill, Mr. Burr assisted him in cutting out a path for 
his team ; — that at the end of a hard day's labor, they accomplished a 
distance of five miles, — reaching the east bank of Still River, at or near 
the old Wheeler house, lately belonging to the Holabird estate, where 
they camped out for the night, — and on the following morning crossed to 
the west side of the river, and built the shanty before mentioned ; and 
that his was the first family settled in the Still River valley, south of the 
Old North road. Wife, Dorcas. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sheldon, came with his father. 

II. Daniel, " " " " 

III. Salmon, b. May 25, 1774. 

IV. Freedom, b. Sept. 5, 1776. 

Sheldon Potter built and lived in the old Wheeler house, on the 
east side of Still River, nearly opposite the Holabird place, which he sold 
to Nathan Wheeler in 1786, and afterwards left the town. He married, 
November 2, 1786, Mary Knowlton, and had> one 

jj - :> ''CHILD. 

I. Ctrus,- b. Feb. 28, 1788. 

Daniel Potter lived in a house which stood above the east bank of 
Still River, nearly due east of the east village hotel, on a road that then 
ran along the rear of the houses more recently built along the east side of 
the river. He sold out to Eleazer Porter in 1789. His name is on the tax 
list of 1796 ; he left town soon after 1798, and probably settled in Johns- 
town, Montgomery County, New York, as appears by a deed from him in 
1801. He married, December 8, 1785, Naomi Crissey. 

CHILDREN.' 

I. Daniel, b. Aii£. 21, 1786. 

II. Abijah, b. April 19, 1788. 

III. Joseph Crissey, b. March 24, 1790. 



270 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

IV. Alvin, b. Nov. 4, 1791. 

V. Philo, b. Dec. 6, 1793. 

VI. Chester, b. Feb. 13, 1796. 

VII. Harvey, b. Nov. 10, 1798. 

1775. 

David Crissey, from Waterbury, and originally from Woodbury, this 
year bought of Ebenezer Shepard, the farm adjoining Colebrook line, late 
owned by George Marvin. He died in 1803 ; his inventory was returned 
to the Norfolk Probate Court, March 14, 1804. He married at New 
Haven, Hannah Wilmot. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Preserved, b. m., January 11, 1737, Rachel Kellogg. 

II. Mary, m. Joseph Loomis of New Hartford. 
HI. Naomi, m. Daniel Potter of Winchester. 
IV. Israel was 13 years old when his father came to Winchester. 

V. Jemima, m. Fairchild. 

VI. Asenath, m. Ira Mudge, of Pittsfield, Otsego Co., N.Y. 

VII. Liberty, m. Brainard and moved to Chatham. 

VIII. Hannah, m. Levi Dean of South Canaan. 

IX. Phineas, b. in Winchester June 19, 1778. 

Preserved Crissey, 2 a prominent citizen, first lived, until 1794, in a 
house then standing, where Mrs. Lucy Coe now lives, on Spencer Street, 
after which, until 1803, he lived in the house, now torn down, on West 
Lake street, nearly opposite the John Stabell house ; soon after which he 
removed to Litchfield, Herkimer county, New York. He married, January 
11, 1787, Rachel Kellogg. 

children. 

I. Electa, 3 b. March 14, 1788. 

II. Truman, 3 b. February 22, 1790. 

III. Alfred, 3 b. March 19, 1792. 

IV. Philo, 3 b. October 10, 1794. 

Israel Crissey lived on the eastern border of the Indian Meadow 
near Colebrook line. He removed in 1810 to Norfolk. He married 
February 7, 1788, Alice Woodruff. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Mehitable, b. July 21, 1789 ; m. Seth Barber, and removed to Western N. Y. 

II. Benjamin Wilmot, b. May 19, 1791 ; m., 1828, in Norfolk, Eunice Burr, and 

had Warren, b. 1831; Ralph Israel, b. 1833; Olive Elizabeth, b. 1835; 
Theron Wilbert, b. 1S37. 

III. Alice, b. June 15, 1793; d. unmarried in 1861. 

IV. Olive, b. February 28, 1795 ; m. Seth Barber, Western N. Y. ; living in 1859. 






AND FAMILY RECOBDS. 271 

1776. 

David Mills, from West Simsbury, now Canton, owned the lot which 
embraced the Winsted Manufacturing Company's and Cook Axle Com- 
pany's premises, and extending easterly to Barkhamsted line. He lived 
on Wallen's Hill, where the clock-factory road joins the north and south 
roads, in the red house afterwards owned by Lemuel Clark and Daniel 
Burnham. He removed with his sons, Eliphalet and Daniel, to Colebrook, 
about 1804 or '5, where he died. He was son of John'' (born 1600 ; died 
Canton, 1774) and Damaris (Phelps) Mills; grandson of John and Sarah 
(Pettibone) Mills; great grandson of Simon and Mary (Buell) Mills, and 
great-great-grandson of Simeon and Sarah (Bissell) Mills, who came from 
England. He married, about 1761, Huldah Edgecomb ; she died February 
7, 1787; and he married (2d) May 8, 1788, Jane Hungerford ; he mar- 
ried (3d), December 26, 1789, Abigail Shortman. 

CHILDREN. 
I. David, b. May, 1762; d. 3i years old. 

II. ClIAUNCET, 

III. Phebe, m. David Smith. 

IV. Roswell, m. Ellis Apley. 

V. Elizabeth, m. February 4, 1795, Josiah Aplcy. 

VI. Huldah, b. in W. October 19, 1776 ; m., January 1, 1794, Thomas Boyd, 

of Amcnia, N. Y. 
VII. Eliphalet, b. January 5, 1779. 
VIII. Daniel, b. February 6, 1782. 

IX. Sarah, b. January 10, 1785 ; m. Win. Shortman, of Kindcrhook, N. Y. 

Chauncey Mills lived in a house next north of his father's, which 
stood on the site of the house now owned by George Raymond. He sold 
out in 1803, and is named of Adams, Jefferson county, New York, in a 
deed of 1806. He married September 26, 1784, Ruth Doolittle. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Seloen, b. September 27, 1 788. 

II. Anna, b. February 14, 1790. 

III. Fylkr (twin), b. September 15, 1792. 

IV. Fanny (twin), " 

Eliphalet Mills learned the scythe makers' trade of Jenkins & 
Boyd, and resided in the town a few years after his majority ; and then, 
with his brother Daniel, erected and carried on a scythe works at Cole- 
brook River. He eventually migrated to Ohio, where he died. He mar- 
ried Eda Hurd. 

Daniel Mills learned the hatters' trade and afterwards went into the 
scythe-making business at Colebrook River, where he died. He married 
Hannah Hurd. 



272 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

His son, Daniel H. Mills, and his daughter, the wife of C. S. Norton, 
now reside in Winsted. 

1777. 

Ensign Jesse Doolittle, from New Hartford, this year bought of 
Stephen Chubb, Jr., the mill lot reserved by the proprietors at the Still 
River Falls, where the clock factory is now located, and the land adjoining 
on the east side of the river. His house was burned, after which he built, 
on the same site, the Asaph Pease house, which has recently been taken 
down and removed, which stood where the road now runs, nearly opposite 
tbe house of Isaac B. Woodruff, and occupied it until his death, February 
9, 1793, aged 55. The house previously occupied by Elias Balcom, and 
which Mr. Doolittle first occupied, stood on the site of the house next south 
of the Beecher store. His wife, Mary, died March 2, 1819, aged 82. 

Jesse Doolittle, Jr., oldest son of Ensign Jesse, lived about half 
way up Wallen's hill, on the south side of the road running east from the 
clock factory, in a house long since torn down. About 1812, he removed 
to Wolcott, Wayne county, New York, where he died about 1822. He 
married November 15, 1787, Hannah Jopp. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Marion, b. July 6, 1788; m. Moses Hitchcock. 

II. Lorrain, b. December 16, 1790. 

III. Silas, b. September 17, 1794. 

IV. Zebina, b. July 20, 1796. 

V. Erwin, b. June 1, 1799; lived at Wolcott, N. Y., 1822. 

VI. Zeraii, b. October 1, 1802. 

VII. Huldah, b. August 26, 1804. 

VIII. Hannah Henshaw, b. December 3, 1806. 

IX. Edward Houghton, b. January 29, 1809. 

X. Nelson, b. November 4, 1810. 

Zerah Doolittle, second son of Ensign Jesse, lived with his father, 
and continued to occupy the homestead until, he removed to Vermont 
about 1800. He married Lucy Wheeler in 1793, who eloped with Major 
Seth Wetmore about eight years afterwards. 

Lyman Doolittle, third son of Ensign Jesse, born June 5, 1779, 
lived in the old homestead until 1819, when he bought the Zena? Wilson 
plan ■.now owned by William F. Koraback, on the old North Road, where 
lie die ! March 14, 1851, aged 72. He married Achsah Davis. She died 
October 9, 1 854. He had a son, Lyman Jr., who died a soldier in the 
U. S. army near the time of the Mexican War, leaving a widow. One 
of his daughters married Daniel B. Wilson, one married Julius Weaver, 
and another married Henry Dowd. 

The name of this Doolittle family has become extinct in the town. 
The descendants in the female line are numerous. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 273 

Samuel Hayden, Esq., came from Goshen this year, and owned a 
farm on the old North Road ; his dwelling stood on the north side of the 
road, nearly opposite the late Riley Smith's. Before 1790, he sold out 
and purchased a farm on "Wallen's Hill, and built a house a little east of 
the town line, in Barkhamsted, which is still occupied by his daughter, Mrs. 
Laura Andrews. In his old age he removed with the family of his youngest 
daughter, to Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he died. He was a man of 
pure character, strong intellect, and quiet humor ; a justice of the peace, 
and three times a representative of the town of Barkhamsted. In his 
advanced years, he united with the Winsted Congregational Church and 
honored his profession. He was born in Windsor, January 12, 1748, son 
of Samuel and Abigail (Hall) Hayden ; grandson of Samuel and Anna 
(Holcomb) Hayden ; great-grandson of Daniel and Hannah (Wilcoxson) 
Hayden ; and great-great-grandson of William Hayden, one of the. early 
settlers of Windsor, and afterward of Killingworth. He married Rebecca 
Smith; she died September 1, 1793; he married (2d) Sally Maybee. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Samuel, b. October 24, 1774 ; d. September, 1799. 

II. Mary, b. December 4, 1776; m. 1797, Gideon Hall; d. March 16, 
1830. 

III. Seth, b. June 8, 1781 ; m. Huldah Soper; d. 1845. 

IV. Moses, b. October 30, 1783 ; m. May 8, 1806, Sally Jenkins. 
V. Abigail, b. March 27, 1788; d. 1805. 

VI. Laura, b. October 17, 1791 ; m. July 13, 1826, Charles Andrews. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

VII. Anne, b. November 2, 1795 ; m. Luman Whiting, Austinburg, O. 

VIII. Sally, b. June, 1803 ; m. Solomon Curtis Smith. 



Seth Hayden, son of Samuel, Esq., lived on the southerly side of 
the Old North Road, adjoining Barkhamsted line, until 1827, when he 
migrated to Bethany, Wayne Co., Penn., where he died March 14, 1845, 
aged 64. He was a retiring man, of feeble constitution, and industrious 
habits, who reared and educated a large family of children, now occupy- 
ing stations of usefulness and honor. The compiler affectionately 
remembers him, after a lapse of nearly sixty-five years, as a mild, kind- 
hearted, and faithful schoolmaster. He married Huldah Soper. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Samuel, b. May 4, 1805; m. ; d. New Harmony, la., March 7, 

1842; had two children, Laura and Henry. 
II. Seth, b. February 21, 1807 ; d. April 2, 1825 ; unmarried. 
III. Lucikn, b. Octobei-31, 1808 ; graduated Hamilton College, 1836 ; ordained 
Pastor of Baptist Church, Dover, N. II., 1838; resettled Saxton's 

35 



274 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

River, Vt, 1843; received degree of A.M. at Madison University, 

1854 ; resettled New London, N. H., 1857 ; m. (1st), Caroline C. Smith, 

Keene, N. H., by whom he had one child, Lucien Henry, b. May 21, 

1839; he m. (2d), 1858, Mary J. Prescott of Concord, N. H. 
IV. Colin Marcos, b. January 15, 1811; farmer, J. P., and Deacon of Bapt. 

Church at Cornwall, HI. ; has two children, Samuel S. and Huldah 

Sophia. 
V. Corinthia, b. July 28, 1814; m. Benjamin Smith of Penn. 
VI. Holdah Rebecca, b. February 28, 1817 ; m. Levi Bronson, E. Saginaw, 

Mich. 
VII. Henry, b. February 28, 1817; m. Sophia Bowman, Town Hill, Penn.; 

lives in Muncy, Penn; has a son, William B.,b. June, 1851. 
VIII. William, b. September 9, 1821 ; graduated Castleton Medical College, Vt,; 

settled in Wyoming, 111. ; has children : 1. Isabella, b. 1848 ; 2. Frank, 

b. 1849. 
IX Laora Abigail, b. May 30, 1826. 

Moses Hayden, Esq., second son of Samuel, resided, until his 
removal from the state, a little south of his father, in a house built for 
Rev. Mr. Woodworth, the first pastor of the Winsted Congregational 
Church. He, too, was a schoolmaster in his early years, less kind, but 
more efficient than his brother. He early succeeded his father as justice 
of the peace, was a member of the Assembly during seven sessions, and 
in the war of 1812 commanded a company of state troops called out for 
the defence of New London. In 1815 he migrated to Bethany, Penn., 
where he was a justice of the peace. He died suddenly in 1829, aged 
46. He married May 8, 1806, Sally Jenkins. 

CHILDREN. 
I. James Carleton, b. August 13, 1806; m. — Phillips; lives in Corn- 

wall, 111. ; lias two sons and one daughter. 
II. Julia, b. October 25, 1807; m. Heman Arnold, Pa.; d. 

1830. 

III. Joseph Addison, b. January 1, 1809; went to Michigan. 

IV. Locia, b. February 16, 1810; m. H. Ames. 

V. Jane, b. April 21, 1811; m. (1st), — King; (2d), M. 

Greiner. 

VI. Helen, b. August 5, 1812; m. C. P. Sweet; d. October 
10, 1842. 

VII. Edwin, b. March 7, 1814. 

VIII. Lavinia, b. July 15, 1815; m. — Miller. 
IX. Samoel Sheridan, b. November 9, 1822. 

James Carleton Hayden, son of Moses, lived in Winsted for some 
fifteen years after coming of age ; afterward at Wolcottville, whence he 
removed about 1855 to Cornwall, Illinois. Plis residence in Winsted 
was in the house on the south side of Main street, nearest to Still River 
Bridge. The family name has become extinct in the town, but several 
descendants in the female line still remain. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS . 275 

John Dakbe or Derby, from Hebron, lived beyond the Barkham- 
sted line on Wallen's Hill, as early as 1773, and came into Winchester as 
early as 1778. He owned the land south of the road east from the 
clock shop up Wallen's Hill, afterward owned by Ensign Doolittle, and 
lived in the house near the top of the hill until 1782. He is named of 
Norfolk in 1787. He married September 22, 1773, Sarah Balcom; had 
one child, Phebe, b. July 8, 1774. 

Henry Walter from Torrington, bought and occupied land on 
Spencer street, now a part of the Lockwood farm, and lived in a log 
house near the Lockwood dwelling. His land was taken on execution 
for debt in 1793. 

JonN Walter, son of Henry, from Torrington, owned in 1779 a lot 
of land within the borough limits of Winsted, and in 1790 bought a part 
of the Lockwood farm, on which he lived until his removal to Burke, 
Vt., after 1798. He served in Captain Watson's Company, Colonel 
Bin-rail's Regiment, on the northern frontier. He married August 3, 
1773, Sarah Gleason. 

children. 
I. Cynthia, b. April 7, 1774. 
II. Norris, b. October 25, 1775. 

III. Jerusha, b. January 18, 1777. 

IV. Andrew, b. December 5, 1779. 
V. John, b. February 25, 1782. 

VI. Eber, a younger son, came back from Vermont, lived in Winsted several 
years, and removed to and died in Wayne Co., Pa. He married a 
daughter of Major Isaiah Tuttle of Torringford. 



Andrew Walter returned from Vermont to Winsted not far from 
1805 ; married Abby Westlake, and raised a family of children, one of 
whom married Silvester Hart. He lived several years on the William 
F. Hatch farm, and afterwards in various places. He died not far 
from 1840. 

Lemuel Walter, probably brother of the foregoing, also lived on a 
part of the Lockwood farm in 1781, and afterward in a log house on 
Spencer street, between Hinsdale street and the district school house. He 
died in the town in 1792. He had wife Mehitabel, and 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hannah, b. November 9, 1776. 
II. Roxt, b June 5, 1779. 

III. Lemuel, b. January 2, 1780 ; d. 1792. 



276 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Daniel Walter, in 1786, owned the western part of the Colonel 
Hinsdale farm, and sold the same in 1793. He married August 19, 
1779, Mary Gleason. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Augustus, b. March 3, 1780. 

II. Leonard, b. April 19, 1782. 

III. Polly, b. September 29, 1784; d. July 17, 1785. 

IV. Daniel, b. November 13, 1787 ; d. June 17, 1792. 

Ira Walter, in 1793, bought land north of and adjoining John 
Walter's land, which he sold in 1797. 

Ebenezer Rowley, Jr.'s name first appears on the land records of 
1781, but his name is on the Petition of 1777, for the incorporation of 
Winsted Society, as well as the recorded birth of his oldest child, indi- 
cates an earlier residence. He came from Chatham, and was probably 
the first settler on South street. He owned and occupied until his death, 
the dwelling and farm lately owned by Orson W. Jopp. He was a hard 
working, jovial, thrifty, and in earlier years, public-spirited man, who 
raised a large family, and by his practical jokes contributed largely to the 
cheerfulness of his associate pioneers. 

His brother-in-law, Knowlton, occupied the adjoining farm. Their 
cleared lands extended down the hill westward to Still River at the base 
of the mountains. " Uncle Ebb." had been out cooping through the 
night on the mountains and was i*eturning at early dawn, when he hears 
Knowlton calling to his cow which had strayed into the forest. To 
Knowlton's call Uncle Ebb. responded in cow language from the foot of the 
mountain. Knowlton wades the muddy stream to reach the spot from 
which he had heard the looing. Rowley, unseen, ascends the slope and 
gives another cow-like moo-o, and Knowlton follows ; Rowley reaches 
the top of the ridge and gives another moo-o, — and while Knowl- 
ton climbs from crag to crag, wondering how the " tarnal critter " 
could get up there, Rowley slips down the mountain, crosses the stream 
to the cleared land and presents himself to the bewildered view of Knowl- 
ton from the mountain top, and explains the joke by another prolonged 
moo-o-o, and by throwing himself on all fours and kicking up his heels in 
the air, after the manner of sportive female oxen, and then sets off on the 
run for his chores and breakfast. 

" Uncle Ebb." sometimes " found his match." It was in those days a 
stigma to a man's thriftiness to lay in a short stock of pork for the com- 
ing year, and our uncle was a self constituted inspector of his neighbors' 
pork barrels. Calling on the mild, sober-sided Squire Ilaydeu, the squire 
lighted his candle to get a mug of cider from the cellar, when Uncle Ebb. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 277 

• 
proposed to go with him and examine his pork. The squire assented, and 
showed him a barrel nearly full ; the inspector examined and smelled. 
The squire then called his attention to another barrel in a dark comer 
which he thought might have a little pork at the bottom, — and so turn- 
ing the light as to give an imperfect view, he raised the lid, — Uncle 
Ebb., in haste to complete the inspection, thrust his arm to the bottom of 
the barrel before discovering that it was filled to the brim with soft soap^ 
which adhered to his arm from the hand to the shoulder. 

A hardy race were these South street pioneers, from Still River bridge 
down to Major Isaiah Tuttle's, who sifted their corn-meal for hasty pud- 
ding " through a ladder." The Major remarked that by working bare- 
footed in the stubble fields, their heels became so hard and flinty that if 
they happened to tread on the feet of their cattle it would make them 
bellow ! 

Apropos of the Major, — the horse -tamer, who could ride anything 
but chain-lightning. — With his boys he was felling timber on top of the 
same ridge of mountains. They felled a tall tree, so that one-third of its 
length extended over a precipice of some twenty or thirty feet. The 
Major ordered his oldest boy to go out on the trunk and cut away the 
top. Uriel went out and after striking a few blows came back with a 
swimming head. Daniel was sent out to finish the job, but soon came 
back equally dizzy. After blazing away in his characteristic manner at 
his boys for their want of pluck, the Major took up his axe and went out 
himself, and chopped away, until the top of the tree unexpectedly yielded. 
One of his feet was on each side of the chopping; and as the one on the 
top section yielded he lost his presence of mind, and instead of grasping 
the main body of the tree threw his arms round the falling section and 
went down with it. The boys, hastening round the precipice, came down 
to the landing place of the tree top, and found the Major bruised and 
wounded, but on his feet, wiping away with green leaves the blood that 
was flowing into his eyes and mouth from a wound in his forehead # 
" Father," said one of the boys, " you've had a terrible fall." " Yes ! 
yes !" said the Major, '' a terrible fall ! Adam's fall was nothing to it ! " 

Returning from this undignified digression, we remark that Mr. Row- 
ley was a vivid type of the pioneers of this region ; a hardy worker, turn- 
ing his hand to any farming or mechanical labor, shaving His own shingles, 
splitting his own laths, hewing his own timber, and grafting his own trees, 
No man was more efficient and public spirited than he in getting up the 
East village Congregational meeting hou<e and settling the pastor. A 
change in the mode of raising the salary of the minister by annual sale of 
pews instead of the old method of taxation, so disaffected him towards 
the society that he ceased to attend its worship and selected a spot on his 



278 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

■ 
farm for his own burial.* He died at the age of 79, Aug. 25, 1834. 
Wife, Abigail. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Reuben. b. Feb. 10, 1775. 

II. Abigail, b. Nov. 5, 1779; m. Hazael Dunham. 

III. Erastus, b. April 17, 1782. 

IV. Antha, b. July 10, 1784; m. April 3, 1806, Thos. R. Bull. 
V. Ada, b. June 26, 1786. 

VI. Flora, b. April 15, 1789; m. June 1, 1809, John Westlake. 

VII. Betsey, b. June 10, 1791. 

VIII. Adna, b. about 1793. 

IX. Alpha, b. " 1795. 

X. Mira, b. " 1798; m. Hal sey Bailey. 

XI. Beulah, b. " 1800; m. May 27, 1829, Benj. Fowler. 



Asher Rowley, younger brother of Ebenezer, Jr., first appears on 
the list of 1789, though it is probable that he came to Winsted earlier. 
In 1794, his father conveyed to him the farm on South street, next north 
of his brother Ebenezer, which he occupied until his death. He was b. 
Jan. 18, 1765, at Chatham, Conn., and d. at Winsted, Sept. 7, 1844. He 
m. Mehetabel, dau. of Lieut. Jonathan Dunham, b. at Colchester in 1774. 
She d. June 21, 1839. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Betsey, b. Jan. 10, 1794; m. Lewis McDonald, from Wood- 

bury, Conn., and now (1872) living in Wisconsin. 
II. Ansel, b. Feb. 13, 1796; m. Lucy Clayborn, of Chester- 

field, Va. ; d. at Oakland, Missouri, Oct. 25, 1851. 

III. Eli as, b. March 22, 1798. 

IV. Warren Dunham, b. June 20, 1800; m. (1), Nancy Stanton; (2% Har- 

riet Curry, both of South Trenton, N. Y., where he d. Sept. 25, 1854, 
highly respected, and entrusted with important offices. 
V. Sally M., b. June 28, 1802; m. Sept. 6, 1827, Chauncey Shat- 

tuck of W. ; settled in Green Township, Fa., where he d. She now re- 
sides in Ackley, Iowa. 
VI. Harriet, b. July 20, 1804; d. Aug. 18, 1831, unmarried. 

VII. George, b. July 16, 1806; supposed to be living in Wisconsin. 

VIII. Harlow, b. July 12, 1S08; m. Sarah A. Hayncs. Now living 

in Brighton, Canada West. 
IX. Hiram, b. April 7, 1811; drowned while fording a stream 

near Little Rock, Ark., Jan. 7, 1841. 
X. Charles, b. May 3, 1813; d., unmarried, at Fhiladelphia, 

Dec. 21, 1833. 
XI. Charlotte, b. Dec. 6, 1815; d. Dec. 17, 1815. 



* His remains, and those of his wife, were transferred to the Central burying- 
ground, after the farm went out of the hands of the family. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 279 

Elias Rowley, son of Asher, received a conveyance of his father's 
homestead and farm, in May, 1839. He sold the homestead on South 
street, and built his present residence on the Wolcottville road, about 
1847. He m. Widow Laura Curtis, dau. of Lemuel Bushnell, of 
Hartland. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hiram D., b. Sept. 4, 1828; now of Delphi, N. Y. 

II. George S., b. Oct. 20, 1830; m. Sophronia Buckman. 

III. Warren, b. Jan. 15, 18.32. Supposed to be living in Idaho Ter. 

IV. Charles L., b. Jan. 10, 1834; m. Martha J. Simonson, of Watkins, 

N. Y. ; living at Willard, N. Y. 
V. Ansel, b. Dec. 28, 1836 ; m. Ruey Rogers, of Orwell, Vt., now 

of Hersey, Michigan. 
VI. John G., b. July 11, 1838 ; m. Anna C. Latham, of Granby, Conn. 

VII. Henry H., b. Aug. 26, 1839; m. C. Louise Grant, of Torrington ; 

now (1872) of Burrville, Conn. 
VIII. Catharine A., b. Dec. 11, 1841 ; m. Samuel H. Norton, of Otis, Mass.; 
d. May 18, 1861, leaving son Edward L. 
IX. Edward, b. Feb. 28, 1844; d. Sept. 18, 1844. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

INCORPORATION OF WINSTED SOCIETY, AND CONTINUED IMMIGRATION. 

1778. 

The families named in the preceding chapter, with those of the 
Austins on Lake street, composed nearly the whole population in 1778, 
while a settlement almost as large had been made iu the west part of 
Barkhamsted. 

The circumstances of the new settlement at this period are fully set 
forth in the following petition to the general assembly for the incorpora- 
tion of the ecclesiastical society of Winsted. 

" To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, to be 
convened at New Haven on the second Tuesday of October next : — 

" The memorial of the subscribers hereunto humbly sheweth to your 
honors, that we are inhabitants of the east part of the town of Win- 
chester, and west part of the township of Barkhamsted, to the number of 
about twenty-five families, and nearly 130 souls, being destitute of the 
privileges of a preached Gospel, and that there having formerly been a 
tax granted by your honors to promote the Gospel in that society, and 
no tax on the land east of the Long Pond, and that said pond so divides 
the town that the inhabitants on the east side of the pond cannot attend 
worship with those on the west side of the same ; and that those inhabit- 
ants on the west side of Barkhamsted are so divided from those on the 
east side of said town by a rough and ragged chain of mountains and 
a rapid river, that it is impossible for them to have any communication 
as a society without the greatest inconvenience. We would further 
humbly shew to your honors that the greatest part of the lands are held 
by wealthy proprietors residing in other towns, who are not disposed to 
sell or settle, which is much to our detriment, in keeping out people that 
would otherwise come in, whereby the inhabitants are disabled from 
supporting the Gospel. We would not censure them too hard, but are 
humbly of the opinion that as we, by breaking the way and encountering 
the many ditliculties and disadvantages that attend the first settlement of 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



281 



such a new, rough unci heavy-timbered place have added to the value of 
their land, it is no more than equitable that they, with us, should contri- 
bute towards defraying the costs that will arise in having the Gospel set 
up among us. 

" We, therefore, your honors' memorialists, would humbly pray that 
to so good an end your honors would form the part of Barkhamsted that 
is west of Farrnington River, with the east part of Winchester, into one 
ecclesiastical society, with powers and privileges that other societies 
have, taking in all the land in said Winchester east of said pond, and to 
run by the end thereof with the line of the lots next to said pond, across 
the pond stream to the west end of said lots, and then running north- 
ward at the end of the lots to the river known by the name of Mad 
River, so as to take in all the land that has not been taxed before, and 
from thence up said river so far as to take in the third tier of lots, and 
from thence to Colebrook line, containing in the whole about 12,000 
acres, and that your honors would grant a tax on all the above lands, 
sufficient for the purpose of hiring some suitable orthodox preacher, to 
preach the Gospel among us for the space of four years next coming, 
and that Mr. Charles Wright, whom we nominate for a collector, be 
empowered to gather said tax, and as in duty bound, your memorialists 
will ever pray. 

" Dated at Winchester this 1st day of September, Anno Domini, 1777. 



John Darbe, 
Josiah Smith, 
Enoch Palmer, 
John Balcoru, 
David Mills, 
Reuben Sweet, 
Ebenezer Rowley, 



Charles Wright, 
John Wright, Jr., 
Freedom Wright, 
Phinehas Potter, 
John Walter, 
Isaac Kellogg, 
Eleazer Kellogg, 



Lemuel Walter, 
Abraham Catling, 
Foster Whitford, 
Jonas Weed, Jr., 
Stephen Arnold, 
Nathaniel Crowe, 
Robert Whitford." 



1778. 



This petition, after continuance to the February session in 1778, was 
granted, and the Society of Winsted, embracing the territory prayed 
for, was invested with all the powers and privileges by law belonging to 
other ecclesiastical societies in this state, with the power of taxing the 
lands of non-resident proprietors two pence on the acre of their lands not 
taxed by the Society of Winchester, for the term of four years, for 
supporting the gospel. 

As we shall hereafter give in a connected form the history of the 
ecclesiastical society of Winsted, we proceed with our account of the 
settlers. 

36 



282 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The inventory of John Steel, late of Winchester, deceased, was 
this year returned to the Simsbury Probate Court by Hannah Steel, his 
widow. He is not found on the records as a landholder, and his location 
is not known, but as the bondsman and appraisers lived near Barkhain- 
sted line, his residence was probably in the same vicinity. 

Barzillai Handee from Woodbury, this year bought a tract of 
land near Colebrook line, now composing a part of the Wm. E. Cowles 
farm, which he owned and occupied until 1781, when he probably 
returned to Woodbury, his name appearing in " Cothren's History " as 
one of a committee to provide for soldiers' families in 1783. Wife Mary. 

CHILDREN. 



I. 


Clemons, 


b. 


August 29, 1762. 


II. 


Cyrenus, 


b. 


April 13, 1764. 


III. 


Abel, 


b. 


August 13, 1767; d. March 13, 1769 


IV. 


Lucy, 


b. 


May 13, 1769. 


V. 


Lyman, 


b. 


December 17, 1773. 


VI. 


Thankful, 


b. 


November 13, 1776. 


711. 


Lucretia, 


b. 


August 4, 1779. 



Clemons Handee is on the tax list of Winsted, from 179G to 1799, 
when he lived in one of the houses attached to the Upper Forge. He is 
believed to have been an iron refiner or bloomer. 

Cyrenus Handee lived as late as 1810 near the Old Forge in the 
southeast corner of Colebrook. He raised a family there, of whom three 
were Alpha, Hiram, and Leman, the latter of whom made extensive 
explorations in Africa and Central America, in pursuit of wild animals 
for the Westchester menageries. 

During the years 1779 and 1780, we find the names of no new settlers 
of the Winsted section. 



1781. 
The following memorial shows more feelingly than any modern writing 
can do, the condition of this back-woods settlement, in this year. 

To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Connecticut convened 
at Hartford: 

The Memorial of the subscribers hereunto humbly shows to your Honors, 
that we are inhabitants of the east part of Winchester, making part of the 
society called Winsted, and being the newest and youngest part of said 
Winchester, having just begun under low circumstances, on new and un- 
cultivated and exceeding heavy timbered lands, the expenses of the town 
and this society being greater than in older places ; having no meeting- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



28; 



house, nor minister settled in this society, most of us not having houses 
for ourselves scarcely to defend us from the inclemencies of the weather, 
and a number without barns ; our families consisting chiefly of small chil- 
dren that cannot provide for themselves, having many of us a considerable 
part of our provision to buy at a distance in these difficult times : expenses 
arising almost on every hand, and but little profit arising from our labor 
or lands ; our quota of men to find for the army, and to provide for, which 
comes very heavy on us ; a considerable of a tax arising on these lands, 
which are wild and useless at present to us. 

We therefore, your Honors' Memorialists, humbly pray that you would 
be pleased to compassionate us, in our infant and weak condition, and suf- 
fer us not to be crushed in the bud of our being by having more laid on 
us than we are able to bear ; but that your honors would be pleased to 
exempt us from county taxes, until it shall appear your duty to lay them 
on us, and we have ability to pay them. As in duty bound your memo- 
rialists shall ever pray. 

Dated at Winsted this 12th day of June 1781. 

Josiah Smith, ^ Committee for the 

Jesse Doolittle, \ Memorialists. 



Enoch Palmer. 
Lazarus Palmer, 
Joseph Bowu, 
David Crissey, 
John Walter, 
Nathan Balcom, 
Henry Walter, 
Simeon Rogers, 



Phinehas Potter, 
John Wright, 
Charles Wright, 
Freedom Wright, 
David Mills, 
Stephen Arnold, 
Samuel Hayden, 
John Balcom, 
Jonathan Balcom. 



In Lower House. 

On this memorial granted that the memorialists be abated of the 2"s. 6 d. 
tax payable December, 1781, and of the 9 d. tax payable March of '82. 

Test, Jedh. Strong, clerke. 
Concurred in the Upper House. 

Test, George Wyllys, secretary. 
{Ecclesiastical Records, vol. 15, p. 132.) 

Uzal Clark, from East Haddam, bought and occupied the lot next 
south of the Ebenezer Rowley farm, on South street, and sold the same 
to Stephen Knowlton in 1784. He afterward lived in Torrington and 
Barkhamsted. Wife Azubah. 



284 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

CHILDREN. 

I. Filenda (dau.), b. October 29, 1780. 
II. Joseph, b. January 1, 1783. 

Stephen Knowlton, Jr., from Chatham, brother-in-law of Ebenezer 
Rowley, bought and lived on the farm on South street, next south of Mr. 
Rowley's farm, in a house now torn down, afterward bought and occupied 
by Samuel Camp. He migrated to Western New York in ] 804. He 
married February 1, 1780, Deidamia Chubb. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Rachel, b. Marcb 31, 1781. 

II. Calvin, b. March 23, 1783. . 

III. Deadamia, b. October 5, 1785; m., 1804, Moses Camp. 

IV. Laura, b. September 21, 1788. 
V. Stephen, b. August 25, 1790. 

VI. Samuel, b. June 6, 1793. 

Simeon Rogers owned a thirty-seven acre lot embracing the home- 
stead lots of John Camp, Edward G. Whiting and others, on North Main 
street. He lived on the east side of Still river, a little north of the old 
Potter house, now standing, until 1789, when he removed to Barkhamsted. 
He was by trade a blacksmith. He married August 12, 1782, Hannah 
Potter. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Joseph, b. January 16, 1783. J So recorded 

II. Polly Esther, b. October 31, 1783. ) 
III. Charrt, b. May 16, 1785. 

Abuah Fuller, from Chatham, owned and lived on 11 acres of land 
on Wallen's hill, adjoining Barkhamsted line, now a part of the farm of 
Homer W. Whiting. He is named of Barkhamsted in 1785. 

Elisha Spencer, from Saybrook, bought and lived on land immediately 
west of the pond causeway, on West Lake street, in a log house that stood 
a little east of the new dwelling recently built by Sherman T. Cook. 
About 1793 he removed to a house, now torn down, on the original Spen- 
cer Street road, about sixty rods north of the Manchester place. In 1812 
he removed with his son, Ozias, to Colebrook, where he died May 3, 1817. 
His wife Mary died July 23, 1828. He was born in Saybrook in 1744, 
and had a wife Rachel, who died before he came to W., by whom he had 
one 

child. 
I. Ozias, b. Saybrook, October 1, 1769. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 285 

CHILDREN BY SECOND "WIFE. 

II. Ranney, b. September 8, 1774 ; d. April 21, 1839. 
III. Elisha, b. November 12, 1777. 

Ozias Spencer resided with his father in both the houses above men- 
tioned, and removed with him to Colebrook in 1812, where he died April 
8, 1858. He married September 29, 1799, Hannah Shattuck ; she died 
October 16, 1800 ; and he married (2d), October 5, 1801, Mary Shattuck. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hiram Shattuck, b. June 12, 1800, by 1st wife. 
II. Hannah, b. March 21, 1804, by 2d wife. 

III. Elvira, b. October 8, 1805. do. 

IV. Amos Bartlett, b. April 16, 1808; m. Susan H. Deland. 

V. Robert Shattuck, b. September 7, 1810; married Charlotte Chapin. 

Ranney Spencer married, 1796, Cynthia Walter; he moved to Ver- 
mont, and died March 21, 1839. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Willard, b. August, 1798. 

II. William, b. June, 1808. 
III. Laurinda, b. 1821. 

Elisha Spencer, Jr., left the town in early manhood, and probably 
settled in Vermont. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Erasmus, b. November 19, 1814. 
II. Chester. d. September 13, 1845. 

Hiram S. Spencer, oldest son of Ozias, lived on his father's home- 
stead, in Colebrook. He married, January 26, 1834, Mary Hill, and died 
Colebrook, 1869. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Amos B., 2d, b. June 29, 1835. 

II. Harrikt C, b. November 28, 1838. 

III. Mary L., b April 25, 1841. 

1782. 
Eleazer Porter, from Hebron, this year bought the original lot which 
embraced all of the east village between the Episcopal church and the 
Green Woods turnpike. He lived on the original road from the Doolittle 
Mill to Torringford, in a house in the rear of the George Roberts and 
Jonas Le Roy houses. During his ownership of this lot, there was no 
road on the west side of Still river, south of Hinsdale street. He sold 



286 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

out the village lot in 1799, and his homestead in 1800, and soon after re- 
moved from the town. Wife Susanna. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Elijah, b. July 19, 1783. 
II. Roswell, b. July 9, 1785. 
III. Anna, b. January 7, 1788. 

Samuel Clark, of Chatham, this year bought lands now composing 
part of the Lockwood farm. He is named as Samuel Clark, 2d, on the 
list of 178-3, being then a resident proprietor. In 1788, he is named in his 
deed conveying away the same land, as Samuel Clark of Canajoharie, 
New York. 

Timothy Cook, from Windsor, this year became the owner of a lot on 
Still River and Wallen's Hill, embracing the Halsey Burr premises, on 
which he built a house and lived some years. In 1792 he owned and oc- 
cupied a lot on Colebrook line, west of Green Woods turnpike. He was 
defendant in a suit in 1797, after which his name disappears. His wife, 
Hannah, was daughter of Simeon Moore, Sr., of Windsor. 

1783. 
Silas Dunham, from Chatham, bought and occupied a lot afterwards 
a part of the Jonathan Coe farm in Winsted, and since owned in part by 
E. S. Woodford, about 100 rods east of the toll gate on Green Woods 
turnpike. In 1794, he is named of Chatham ; and in 1787 of Nobletown, 
Columbia Co., N. Y. 

Comfort Goff, owned and occupied a part of the Gillett farm, on 
Colebrook road, and conveyed the same to Nath. Russell, in 1784. 

Elisha Mallort, from New Haven or Hamden, this year purchased 
the farm on Wallen's Hill, which he occupied during his remaining life. 
The house which he built and occupied, stands on the west side of the 
north and south road, nearly opposite the brick dwelling of his grandson. 
Homer W. Whiting. He was a man of great amiability and integrity of 
character; a founder of the Winsted Congregational Church, from which he 
withdrew during the troubles with the first minister, after which he united 
in organizing the Baptist Church at the north-east corner of the town. 
He was born in February, 17.36; married, March 12, 1762, Esther Chat- 
terton, born in June, 1742. He died March 23, 1812; she died August 
27, 1828. 

CHILDREN. 
T. Amasa, b. February 20, 1763 ; m. Salome, daughter of Deacon Josiah Smith. 
He. died November 9, 1855 ; she d. February 9, 1846, aged 75. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 287 

II. Samuel, b. May 1, 1765. 

III. Lowly, b. November 9, 1769; m. Benjamin Wheeler, who went to 

Wayne Co., Pa. 

IV. Lue, b. April 21, 1770, m. John Hawkins; d. August 20, 1835. 
V. Elisha, b. July 7, 1772; in., February 13, 1794, Sarah, daughter of 

Deacon Josiali Smith. He d. November 6, 1853; she d. June 13, 1838, 
aged 36. 
VI. Esther, b. November 10, 1794; m. Salmon Treat; she d. August 21, 

1853; hed. March 30, 1858, aged 91. 
VII. Lydia, b. July 19, 1777; m., November 26, 1801, Jesse Clarke, of 

Winchester. 
VIII. Peter, b. September 19, 1779; d. May 10, 1780. 

IX. Chloe, b. March 16, 1781, m. Reynold Wilson, son of Abija of W. 

X. Mary, b. May 24, 1784; m., May 1, 1806, Lorrin Whiting of W. 

She d. January 10, 1851. 
XL Asa, b. December 7, 1786. 

Amasa Mallory married Salome, oldest daughter of Deaeon Josiah 
Smith, and lived on the farm now owned by his daughter, Salome 
Mallory, on the Green Woods turnpike, a mile easterly from the east 
village. He died November 9, 1855, aged 93. His wife died February 
9, 1846, aged 75. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sally, m. January, 1812, William Dexter; went to Illinois, 

II. Amasa, settled in Illinois. 

III. Nancy, in. Henry B. Crowe ; lived and died in Winsted. 

IV. Polly, m. Lorin Sexton of Hartford. 
V. Betsey, m. Samuel S. Camp of Norfolk. 

VI. Anne, m. Miles C. Burt of Hartford. 

VII. Salome, unmarried. 
VIII. Harriet, m. Dr. Myron H. Hubbard of New Hartford, and m. (2d) 
Harvey B. Elmore of Winsted. 

Elisha Mallory, Jr., lived on the farm in Barkhamsted bordering 
on Winchester line, in the house now owned and occupied by his sou 
Elisha 3d, and his daughter Sylvia. He married February 13, 1791, 
Sarah 2d, daughter of Deacon Josiali Smith. He died Novemln r 6, 
1853, aged 81. She died January 13, 1838, aged 66. 

Asa Mallory, son of Elisha, lived with his brother Elisha in Bark- 
hamsted, until 1809, and afterwards in the old homestead with his 
father, until 1S16, when he removed to Concord, near Painesville, Ohio 
He married December 8, 1807, Fanny Norton. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Riley, b. December 13, 1808. 
II. Harmon, b. January 2, 1811. 

Comfort Stanclift had a child born in the town this year. In 



288 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

1786 he bought the Andrew Pratt farm, a mile south of the Naugatuck 
depot, on which he lived until 1792 ; wife Hannah. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Margaret, b. July 26, 1783. 

II. Martin, b. March 11, 1785. 

III. Hannah, b. January 30, 1787. 

Samuel Stanclift from Torringtou, first owned land in the old 
society, near Goshen line, and afterwards owned and lived on a farm 
adjoining that of Comfort Stanclift, in a log house, long since torn down, 
which stood on the north and south road, nearly east of the Pratt house. 
He sold to Aaron Marshall. In 1798 he is named of Norfolk. He 
married, November 12, 1783, Olive Balcom. 

CHILD. 

Samuel, b. August 10, 1784. 

John Sweet from Rhode Island, this year bought the Edward 
Manchester farm on Spencer street, and built the rear part of the dwell- 
ing thereon, in which he lived until he purchased the mill property and 
farm of David Austin, at the outlet of the lake, in 1796. He then lived 
in the house directly east of the bulkhead, at the pond outlet, a few 
years, and about 1800 sold out to the Rockwell Brothers, and bought the 
Erastus Woodford farm, on which he built the house at the parting of 
the turnpike and Colebrook roads. In 1806 he removed to Otis, Mass., 
whence he returned about 1812, and bought the farm between the lakes, 
and a few years later removed to Tyringham, Mass., thence, to Staten 
Island, N. Y., and thence to East Hartland, where, at 90 years of age, 
he married his third wife, and died a few years later. 

He was a shrewd, long-headed, restless man, who made sharp bargains, 
but attained to no more than ordinary wealth, owing to his frequent 
removals from place to place. He early became a local Methodist 
minister, and preached and traded to the close of his life. He married, 
December 7, 1780, Phebe, daughter of Thomas Spencer. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Anna, b. August 16, 1781 ; m. November 23, 1797, William Keyes; she 
m. (2d) Rev. Daniel Coe. 
II. Phebe, b. January 20, 1783; m. October 18, 1798, Cyrus Bertrick. 

III. Riley, b. August 16, 1785; was a captain in war of 1812, and left the 

town soon after the close of the war. 

IV. Adah, b. September 29, 1787. 
V. Orra, b. January 20, 1790. 

VI. John Wesley, b. February 18, 1792; m. Laura, daughter of Asahel 
Miller. He owned for a few years the farm between the lakes on the 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 289 

Winchester road. He moved to Tyringham, Mass., in 1S20, where he 
still lives. 

VII. Charles Wesley, b. July 28, 1794; left the state about 1815. 

VIII. Benedict, b. October 15, 1796; m. Lois Lucena Grant. 

IX. Addison, b. September 5, 1800. 

X. Algernon Sidney, b. July 2, 1804. 

The only descendants of John Sweet remaining in the town are the 
children of Colonel Nelson D. Coe, son of Anna, his oldest daughter. 

Zebulon Thompson's name is on the tax list this year. In 1785 he 
lived in a log house then standing on the farm of Thomas Williams, on 
South street. In 1784 he and his son, Zebulon, Jr., were fined six 
shillings each for " prophane swearing " by 'Squire Alvord. 

David West, Jr., from Chatham, first lived in a log house at the 
base of Cobble Hill, on Spencer street, a little south of the Joshua 
Hewit dwelling. Prior to 1800 he built a small house on the site of 
George Dudley's residence, in which he lived until his death in 1822, at 
the age of 87. He was one of the early Methodists, a pious and worthy 
man. His wife, Judith, died February 24, 1816, aged 80. 

Judah West, son of David, Jr., came to Winchester with his father, 
and first lived on the Halsey Burr place, on the old Still River turn- 
pike, and afterward, until his death, April 9, 1825, aged 60, in a house 
on the east side of the same road where the toll gate was located. He 
married, December 26, 1785, Mary Todd. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Mary, b. September 24, 1786; m. Erastus Burr. 

II. David, b. February 20, 1789 ; d. February 22, 1790. 

III. Alpha, b. September 4, 1790. 

IV. Nancy, b. September 6, 1792 ; m. Roswell Burr. 

They had other children whose births are not recorded. Among 
them David, probably born in 1794; a daughter, born about 1797, who 
married John P. Oviatt ; Edgar, about 1799, and Flora, who mar- 
ried November 29, 1821, Hiram Wescott. 

None of this family or their descendants now live in the town. Most 
or all of them removed to Western New York or Ohio. 



37 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WINSTED IMMIGRANTS AND FAMILY RECORDS. 

From 1783 to 1791. 

Nathaniel Russel, from Wethersfield, Rocky Hill Society, came to 
Winsted this year and settled on the farm, on the old road to Colebrook, 
now owned by Junius Gillett, and there spent his remaining life. He 
represented the town in the General Assembly in 1801, held sundry town 
offices, and reared a large and influential family. 

We are indebted to Hon. Edwin Stearns, late of Middletown, deceased, 
for the following extracts from his genealogy of the descendants of 
William Russell, who came from England in 1639. 

Mr. Willtam Russell, born in England, October 11, 1612; came 
from England in 1639, and soon after came to New Haven and signed the 
covenant agreement of the first settlers and free planters of Quinnipiack ; 
was a man of good standing and education, a member for several years of 
the General Court, asses-or of taxes, &c. He died at New Haven, Jan- 
uary 2, 1665. He married, 1649, Sarah, daughter of William and Martha 
Davis, of New Haven; she died December 3, 1664. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Hannah, 2 b. July 29, 1650; m., November 21, 1670, Samuel Potter, of 
Wallingford, afterward of Newark, N. J. 
II. John, 2 b. November 12, 1653; died young. 

III. William, Jr., 2 b. 1655; d. in infancy. 

IV. James, 2 b. 1657 ; d. in infancy. 
V- Noadiah, 2 b. July 22, 1659. 

Rev. Noadiah Russell, 2 graduated at Harvard in 1681 ; tutor in 1682 
and 1 683 ; studied for the ministry ; settled over the first society of Mid- 
dletown in 1688; was one of the founders of Yale College in 1700, and 
one of its trustees; one of the framers of the Saybrook Platform, and a 
distinguished divine, beloved of his flock. He died at Middletown, De- 
cember 3, 1713, in his 55th year. He married, February 20, 1690, 
Mary, daughter of Captain Giles and Esther Hamlin. She died October 
4th, 1743, in her 81st year. 



FAMILY RECORDS. 291 

CHILDREN. 

I. Rev. William, 3 b. November 20, 1690; graduate and tutor of Yale, suc- 
ceeded his father in the ministry at Middletown ; m., August 19, 1719, 
Mary, daughter of Rev. James Pierpont; d. June 1, 1760. 
II. Noadiah, 3 Jr., b. August 8, 1692; m. February 23, 1721, Desire Cooper, 
(daughter of ? ) a farmer in East Middletown ; he d. February 20, 1734. 

III. Giles, 3 b. November 8, 1693; d. June 13, 1712. 

IV. Mary, 3 b. December 30, 1695; d. unm. February 27, 1723. 
V. John, 8 b. July 6, 1697; d. unm. October 17, 1780. 

VI. Esther, 3 b. August 14, 1699; d. March 21, 1720. 

VII. Rev. Daniel, 3 b. June 3, 1702. 

VIII. Mehitabel, 3 b. May 27, 1704; m. March 19, 1729, Daniel Deming, Jr., 
of Wethersfield. 
IX. Hannah, 3 b. February 23, 1707; m. Joseph Pierpont, of North Haven. 

Rev. Daniel Russell, 3 graduated at Yale in 1724; ordained first 
minister of S:epney Society (now Rocky Hill) in 1724; died September 
16, 1764. He married, November 13, 1728, Lydia, daughter of George 
and Rebecca Stillman. She died September 3, 1750, and he married (2d) 
July 29, 1752, Catharine, daughter of Rev. Nailianiel and Sarah Chauncey, 
of Durham, who died January 10, 1777, aged 71. 

children. 

I. Giles, 1 b. November 8, 1729; graduated at Yale, 1751 ; lawyer at Stoning- 
ton ; Captain in Old French War ; Colonel in Connecticut Line in the 
Revolution; mortally wounded at Danbury and d. October 28, 1779. 
II. Lydia, 4 b. January 29, 1731 ; d. November 30, 1735. 

III. Daniel, 4 b. June 21, 1732; m., October 16, 1755, Rachel, daughter of 

Joseph Stowe, of Middletown. 

IV. John-, 4 b. February 8, 1734; d. September 23, 1741. 
V. Benjamin, 4 b. December 13, 1735; d. January 31, 1758. 

VI. Mary, 4 b. August 18, 1737; m., November 25, 1784, John Robbins, 

of Stepney; she d. August 27, 1825, in 90th year. 
VII. Lydia, 4 b. Nov. 26, 1739; d. September 24, 1741. 

VIII. Nathaniel, 4 b. May 5, 1741. 

IX. John, 4 b. December 26, 1742; d. in the army September 16, 1760. 

X. Hannah, 4 b. May 31, 1746 ; d. August 23, 1753. 

Nathaniel Russell, 4 of Winchester, married, December 25, 1766, 
Elizabeth Willard, born in Wethersfield, April 26, 1741, daughter of 
Stephen. He died December 10, 1810, in his 70th year, and she died 
February 26, 1819, in her 78th year. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Daniel, 5 b. in Rocky Hill, January 18, 1768. 

II. John Willard, 5 b. in Rocky Hill, April 8, 1770. 

III. Benjamin, 5 b. in Rocky Hill, November 26, 1772. 

IV. Giles, 5 b. in Rocky Hill, July 27, 1775. 



292 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



V. Elizabeth, 6 b. in Rocky Hill, November 23, 1778; unm. ; removed 

to Mill Creek, Perm. 
VI. Hamlin, 5 b. in Rocky Hill, March 5, 1781. 

VII. George Stillman, 5 b. in Rocky Hill, October 21, 1783; d. unm. July 14, 
1813, at Mill Creek, Penn. 
VIII. Mary, 5 b. in Winsted, July 28,1787; unm.; removed to Mill 

Creek, Penn. 

Daniel Russel, 5 came with his father to Winsted, whence he emi- 
grated, about 1794, to the Genesee Valley, and settled in Williamson, 
Wayne Co., N. Y., as a farmer, and died in 1852, He married, 1792, 
Lucy Wright, of Colebrook. He married (2d) Lucy Aldridge. 



CHILDREN BY FIRST WIPE. 



I. Emma, 6 
II. Daniel W., 6 

III. John, 6 unm. 

IV. Judah 8 , 

V. Nathaniel, 6 - 
VI. Moses, 6 
VII. George, 6 
VHI. Lucy, 6 



m. Stephen Sanford. 



m., March 20, 1834, Rachel Prescott. 



CHILDREN BY' SECOND WIFE. 

IX. Mary, 6 
X. Ann, 6 
XI. Louisa, 6 
XII. Caroline, 6 

XIII. Alfred, 6 

XIV. Hamlin, 6 

John Willard Russell, 5 was a sea captain in the African trade, in 
the employ of the De Wolfs, of Bristol, R. I. He settled at Bristol, 
where he died August 20, 1814. He married, June 1, 1802, Nancy 
Smith; she died September 5, 1810, aged 35. 



I. Elizabeth B., 6 
II. Parnell T., 6 

III. Nancy Smith, 6 

IV. John, 6 

Russell. 



CHILDREN. 

b. September 11, 1803; m. Rev. Royal Robbins. 

b. October 18, 1805; unm. 

b. October 15, 1807 ; m. Henry Felix. 

b. May 25, 1810; was adopted by his uncle Benjamin 



Benjamin Russell, 5 emigrated in 1796 from Winsted to Mill Greek, 
Erie Co., Penn., and married, September 29, 1807, Maria C. Buchler! 
He died June 10, 1829, and his wife died March 16, 1841, aged 67 ; s.p. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 293 

Giles Russell 5 lived with his parents until their death, and removed, 
in 1825, to Erie Co., Penn., where he died March 16, 1842, aged 67 
years. He was for many years a successful teacher ; a man of literary 
taste and culture ; a member of the General Assembly in 1810 and 1816; 
a selectman of the town, and sheriff's deputy for many years. Returning 
to Winsted on a visit, and finding the old cemetery in a neglected condi- 
tion, he collected money enough to pay for clearing the ground, setting out 
the trees, and fencing the cemetery. He married, July 3, 1803, Lois, 
daughter of Urijah and Submit Cook. She died October 17, 1852. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Louisa Lauretta, 6 b. in Winsted, January 9, 1804; m. A. E. Austin, of 

Austinburg, Ohio; she d. April 5, 1855. 

II. Mart Elizabeth, 6 b. W., March 18, 1*05; m. John Cook. 

III. Caroline Matilda, 6 b. W., February 27, 1807 ; m. 1835, Thos. 

G. Hurlbut. 

IV. Julia Ann Rhoda, 6 b. W., July 24, 1809 ; m. May 7, 1831, David Smith. 

V. George Stillman, 6 b. W., March 6, 1812; m. June. .3, 1843, Jane Healey. 
VI. Sarah Sophia, 6 b. W., October 23, 1814; m., January 15, 1844, Jason 

R. Orton, M. D. 
VII. Giles Willard, 6 b. W., November 16, 1817 ; d. unm. August 4, 1836. 
VIII. Benjamin Cook, 6 b. W., August 31, 1820; m., April 13, 1849, Sophia 
Parker. 
LX. Rev. Edward Bradford, 6 b. W., July 24, 1822; m. May 25, 1853, Mary 
Woods; she d. January 27, 1855; and he m. (2d) March 7, 1857, Mary 
E. Cable. 

Hamlin Russell 5 removed from Winsted to Erie Co., Penn., in 
June, 1802, where he was a farmer. He married May 29, 1811, Sarah 
Norcross, born December 22, 1788, in New Jersey. She died February 
11, 1831 ; he married (2d) November 4, 1834, Rachel, daughter of 
Urijah and Submit Cook, who was living in 1862. He died September 
19, 1852, aged 71 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Nathaniel Willard, 6 b. March 11, 1812. 

II. Polly Isabel, 6 b. July 14, 1813; m. Johnston Laird. 

III. Nancy Fleming, 6 b. December 31 , 1815 ; m. Samuel Christy,M.D. 

IV. Benjamin Stillman, 6 b. January 5, 1822. 
V. George Jacob, 6 b. February 24, 1824. 

VI. James Cochran, 6 b. May 12, 1827. 

Daniel W. Russell, 6 eldest son of Daniel and Lucy, a farmer in 
Marion, Wayne Co., N. Y., married, June 17, 1824, Mary, daughter of 
Lewis Turner. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Giles B., 7 b. April 17, 1825. 

EL. Milo T., 7 b. October 29, 1826. 



294 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

III. Cyrus H., 7 b. July 27, 1828. 

IV. Lewis, 7 b. October 3, 1830. 
V. Avert P., 7 b. April 7, 1833. 

VI. Whitney D., 7 b. January 27, 1836. 

VII. Oscar F.,. 7 b. February 6, 1838. 

VIII. Francis M., 7 b. May 19, 1840. 

IX. Edwin M., 7 b. November 20, 1842. 

Judah R. Russell, 6 third son of Daniel and Lucy, removed to 
Tecumseh, Mich., in 1857, where he died in 1858; he married August 
30, 1836, Prudence Prescott. She died June 19, 1851. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Ambrose, 7 b. December 15, 1837. 

II. Prescott P.., 7 b. May 18, 1839. 

III. Charlotte F., 7 b. May 25, 1841 ; d. June 25, 1842. 

IV. Lucy A., 7 b. 1843; d. March 16, 1846. 

Benjamin Stillman Russell, 6 second son of Hamlin and Sarah, 
of Towanda, Penn., a banker in 1862 ; married May 20, 1827, Mary 
Gaskill from Philadelphia, Penn. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sarah Norcross, 7 b. May 7, 1848; d. July 12, 1848. 

II. Edgar Fielding, 7 b. September 5, 1849 ; d. March 31, 1851. 

III. Hamlin, 7 b. May 30, 1852. 

IV. Edmund Gaskill, 7 b. March 23, 1854. 

V. Mary Elizabeth, 7 b. September 18, 1856. 
VI. Samuel Wagner, 7 b. September 27, 1857. 

VII. Benjamin Douglass, 7 b. April 8, 1861. 
VIII. Rebecca Gaskill, 7 b. May 11, 1862. 

George Jacob Russell, 6 third son of Hamlin and Sarah, a tanner 
at Mill Creek, Erie Co., Penn.; married January 26, 1854, Amanda J. 
Hayes, and had, in 1862, one 

CHILD. 

Minnie Myrtle, 7 b. October 20, 1856. 

James Cochran Russell, 6 fourth son of Hamlin and Sarah, at 
Belle Valley, Erie Co., Penn., a farmer ; married February 7, 1856, 
Octavene A. Chambers, by whom he had one 

CHILD. 

James Lewis, 7 b. October 15, I860 ; d. October 2, 1862. 

Benjamin Wheeler, Senior, probably came from Woodbury with 
his son, Benjamin Wheeler, Junior, in 1784. He died in Winsted, 
January 28, 1788. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 295 

Benjamin Wheeler, Junior, named of Woodbury, May 4, 1784, 
owned and occupied the farm late owned by Gideon Hall, Sen., deceased, 
until about 1814, when he removed to Mount Pleasant, Wayne Co., Pa. 
He built the house at the junction of South street with the Green Woods 
turnpike, now occupied by Mrs. G. Hall, in which he kept a tavern at 
the beginning of this century. He was postmaster of Winchester until 
about 1807, when the office was removed to West Winsted. He mar- 
ried, May 5, 1785, Lowly Mallory. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Zayde (dau.), b. March 13, 1786. 
II. iIeman, b. January 11, 1789; d. November 20, 1792. 

III. Franklin, b. February 25, 1791. 

They had several younger children, whose names and births are not 
recorded, among them Heman, Jeduthan, and Lowly are remembered. 
All their children went with them to Mount Pleasant, and were settled 
around him at the time of his death. 



1785. 

Othniel Brainard, Jr., named of Chatham, bought a lot now com- 
posing the south part of the 0. W. Jopp farm, and lived in a log house 
on the east side of South street until 1795, when he sold to Ezra 
Woodruff, and left the town. 

Seba Brainard, William Case (of Barkhamsted), and Nathan 
Hoskin were temporary residents of Winsted, as appears by the tax 
list of this year. 

John Jopp, a native of " Sterderton, Scotland," and a probable 
descendant of Wallace's armor bearer — Jopp — who 

" went on before, 
And the great warrior's massy buckler bore," 

came to America in 1760, at 22 years old; lived in Boston one year; 
afterward went to Leicester, Mass., and married, April 7, 1763, Hannah 
Henshaw ; thence removed to Glastonbury, Conn. ; thence came to 
Winsted in June, 1785, and settled on the Henshaw tract, owned by his 
wife's brother. His house stood on or near the site of the Thomas 
Williams house, on the west side of South street. He died in Winsted 
July 22, 1800. His widow removed to Butler, Wayne Co., N. Y., and 
died there in April, 1820, aged 77. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, b. March 6, 1765. 

II. Elizabeth, b. January 7, 1767. 



296 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

III. Hannah, b. August 25, 1769; d. November 25, 1857 

IV. Huldah, b. April 24, 1780. 

V. Benjamin, b. September 21, 1782. 



John Jopp, Jr., came with his father to Winsted, and occupied, with 
him, the same premises. He built the Thomas Williams house, and 
occupied it until his death, November 4, 1829, aged 66. His wife, 
Jerusha, died December 22, 1844, aged 78. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Russell, went west. 
II. Samuel Henshaw, died April 19, 1813, aged 19. 

III. Sally, m. Harris Brown. 

IV. Orson W., m. — Gilman; lives in Winsted. 



Nathan Wheeler, son of Benjamin, Senior, from Woodbury, this 
year bought the Potter farm, lately owned by the Holabird heirs, and 
occupied the old house on the east side of Still River, nearly opposite 
Nathan Champion's, until his death in 1800, at the age of 40, which 
was occasioned by falling from his hay-mow upon a pitchfork, which 
penetrated his bowels. His widow (Mary) resided in the house until 
her death, August 4, 1822, aged 55. He married March 23, 1786, 
Mary, daughter of Jesse Doolittle. 

children. 

I. Nancy, b. Sept. 5, 1788; m. Reuben Baldwin; she d. Feb. 13, 1854, 

aged 67. 

II. Minerva, b. March 17, 1791 ; m. Scth Bishop, Jr. 

III. Pamela, b. Aug. 6, 1792; m. David Marble. 

IV. Huldah, b. March 3, 1794 ; m. Raymond Mather. 

V. Anson, b. Feb. 3, 1796 ; m. Flavia Barber of Canton, Conn. 

VI. Alma, b. July 17, 1798 ; m. Philo Hawley. 

Anson Wheeler, Esq., son of Nathan, removed to Barkhamsted, 
not far from 1824, where he d. June 26, 1857, aged 61. He was m., 
but childless. 

Capt. Zebina Smith came from Goshen to Winsted in 1784 or 
1785. He lived and died on the farm, and in the house now owned by 
Geo. R. Doolittle, on the old North Road, near Colebrook line. He d. 
Feb. 4, 1842, aged 82. His widow, Martha, d. June 29, 1845, aged 87. 
He was a man of great amiability of character, and of sincere and earn- 
est piety. He represented the town in the General Assembly in 1798 
and 1802. He m., Norfolk, Aug. 1, 1780, Martha Benham. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 297 



CHILDREN. 

I. Eusha, b. March 28, 1785; in. Sally, dau. of John Fyler. 

II. Orriel, b. Oct. 7, 1790; m. Samuel E. Mills of Colebrook. 

III. Miles Benuam, b. 1795; d., uiini., March 14, 1816. - 

Deacon Elisha Smith, son of Capt. Zebina, lived and d. on the 
farm, and in the house nearly opposite his father's, now owned by Solo- 
mon Sacket. He was a man of strong conservative mind and ardent 
temperament, who filled a prominent place in the community, as Deacon 
of the Congregational Church, a Major in the militia, an Assessor of 
taxes at various times, and in 1850, a representative of the town. He 
d. Jan. 29, 1860, aged 75. He m. Sally, dau. of John Fyler; she 
d. 1862. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Aurelia, b. Aug. 30, 1813; in. March, 1835, Alexander P. Cleveland. 
II. Miles, b. July 6, 1817; m. Dec 4, 1839, Matilda Baldwin. 

III. Zebina, b. Aug. 9, 1820; d. Nov. 25, 1841, unm. 

IV. Sarah, b. Dec. 11, 1825; m. Sept. 8, 1858, Rev. Henry A. Russell. 

Milks Smith, m. Dec. 4, 1839, Matilda Baldwin; lived in the house 
previously occupied by his grandfather, Capt. Zebina Smith, and d. July 
27, 1851, leaving a daughter, Martha Baldwin Smith, b. May 18, 1848; 
m. April 23, 1872, King T. Sheldon. 

Aaron West, a minor, confessed judgment beiore Esquire Alvord, 
May 31, 1773, " for playing and laughing on y e Sabbath or Lord's Day," 
and was fined three shillings, and one shilling cost. Flis name next 
appears as grantee of the Lockwood Farm, on Spencer street, on which 
he lived until 1787, when he is named of New Hartford. 

John Shaw, a Hessian soldier from Burgoyne's Army, captured at 
Saratoga, is on the tax list of this and several succeeding years. He was 
a currier and flaxdresser by trade, and after living in various parts of the 
town, retired to the Bourbon region, where he d. April 13, 1806, leaving 
a widow [Eunice], who rode a black and white pacing mare between 
Bourbon and Winsted, as late as 1815. 

John Shaw, Jr., son of the Hessian, though a citizen of Barkham- 
sted, lived at frequent intervals in Winsted, grinding scythes through a 
long course of years, in defiance of the grinder's consumption, and dying 
at the allotted age of man, apparently uninjured by irregular habits. His 
sons, Levi and James, still dwell among us. He had other sons, Jehila- 
mon, Addison, and Andrew Jackson, and one or more daughters. 

38 



298 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Charles Barnes, son-in-law of John Shaw, Sr., lived at this period 
in a log-house on the Thomas Williams farm, and afterwards retired to 
Bourbon. 



1786. 

John Allen's name is on the tax list of this year, as the owner of 
the farm on Spencer street, recently owned, successively, by Nishus Kin- 
ney, Lucius L. Culver, and Luther G. Hinsdale. He built the large red 
house, on the premises, in which he lived until 1798, when he sold out to 
his son-in-law, Elihu Rockwell, and removed, as is believed, to Oneida 
Co., N. Y. 

John Allen, Jr., supposed to have been son of the above, bought 
land in 1797, immediately north of his father's farm, which he sold 
in 1798. 

Jesse Fillet's name is on the list of this year as a resident of 
Winsted, and is not found elsewhere. 

David Holmes, son of Phebe Holmes, afterwards second wife of 
Ghileab Smith, of Goshen, served in the army at New York, in 1776, 
aud came to Winsted in 1786. He owned and occupied the south part 
of the Rockwell farm, now owned by Mrs. J. R. Boyd, and built the old 
farm house now standing thereon. He sold out to Merritt Bull in 1805, 
and removed to Russell, Hampshire Co., Mass. He was brother of 
Joseph Holmes, step-brother of Capt. Zebina Smith, and half-brother of 
Theodore Smith, all of Winsted. He m. April 29, 1784, Chloe Strong. 

children. 

I. William, b. Sept. 18, 1784. 

II. Charlotte, b. Aug. 29, 1786. 

III. Asenath, b. Dec. 6, 1788. 

IV. Clara, b. Oct. 21, 1790. 
V. Chloe, b. May 7, 1792. 

VI. Lyman, b. March 7, 1794. 

VII. Sophia, b. Nov. 20, 1795; d. March 23, 1798, of small pox. 

VIII. Sally, b. Jan. 26, 1798; d. March 13, 1798, of small pox. 

IX. Sophia, b. Dec. 30, 1799. 

X. Sally, b. July 20, 1802. 

XI. Asahel, b. June 4, 1804. 

XII. David, b. Russell, Mass., May 13, 1808. 

Isaac Wheeler, cousin of Benjamin and Nathan, in company with 
Levi Norton, bought the Deacon Hurlbut farm, east of Long Lake, in 
1786. From 1788 to 1790, he lived on the south part of the farm be- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 299 

tween the lakes. In 1795 he bought the part of the West Village ground 
south of M. & C. J. Camp's line, and in 1798 built the old Higley tavern 
house next south of Camp's brick block, the first frame building erected 
on Main street between Col. Hinsdale's corner and Still River Bridge. 
In 1799, he sold out to Horace Higley and removed from town. He 
married, October 17, 1784, Mehitabel Williams, and had one son: 

Riley, b. Nov. 29, 1785. 

Hezekiah Woodruff, Jr., named "of Southington," this year bought 
and occupied a part of the Amos Pierce farm, on Spencer street, and 
built his house on the summit of the hill a quarter of a mile east of Mr. 
Pierce's dwelling. An old orchard visible from the village indicates the 
place where his house stood. He sold out to Grinnell Spencer in 1791, 
and removed to Colebrook. 

Luke Hart's name is on the tax list of this year. In 1787 his wife, 
Deborah, became owner of a lot on the west side of Spencer street, nearly 
opposite Amos Pierce, on which they lived in a log house, and probably 
died there. They had three sons and one daughter, residents of Winsted, 

viz. : Selah, Stephen, Samuel, and , the wife of Hawley Oakley, and 

mother of Alva Oakley, now a resident of Winsted. 

Seeah Hart, son of Luke and Deborah, lived until about 1812 in a 
log house at the parting of the two Colebrook roads, a little west of Jud- 
son Wadswortb's, and about 1816 removed to Canaan Mountain, where 
he died. He was the tallest man in town, and one of the four tallest in 

the county, the other three being . Elmore of Torrington, father, of 

Peleg, Hon. John Allen, M. C, of Litchfield, and Rev. Aaron Kinney of 
Winsted. When straightened up, his height was 6 feet 6^ inches. He 
worked at wall laying, was one of the fathers and pillars of the Methodist 
Church, a devout, kind-hearted, much-loved man. His children were : 
Deborah, wife of Zenas Alvord ; Damy, wife of David Andrews, Sally, 
Phoebus Budd, and Newton. None of the family now reside in the town. 

Stephen Hart, son of Luke and Deborah, lived and died in the 
house nearest to Colebrook line, on the west side of the old Still River 
turnpike. He died September 17th, 1833, aged 66. His wife was Sarah 
Munson, from Middlebury, Connecticut. Among their children were 
Chester, Roseville, and Lovina, who married, March 19, 1825, Zerah 
Doolittle. All of them removed to the West. 

Samuel Hart, son of Luke and Deborah, lived in various parts of the 
town as a tenant farmer. In his later years he owned and occupied a 
house that stood opposite the Uri Church bridge, on the east side of the 



300 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Green Woods turnpike, in which he died March 26, 1867, aged 70. He 
married a daughter of Elemuel Basset t. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Willard, who m Dec. 11, 1822, Rhoda M. Benedict; he ra. (2d) Maria 
Andrews. 
II. Sylvester, m., June 23, 1822, Charlotte Walter. 

III. Wells. 

IV. Hawley. 
V. Sylvia. 

VI. Samuel, m., Nov. 14, 1833, Laura Benedict. 

Of their daughters, one was wife of Samuel Bandle, one of Levi Tuttle, 
and another of Edward Albro. 

1787. 
At the annual town meeting, November 12, 1787, in addition to routine 
business, it was voted " that the prayer of tbe memorial now lying in the 
General Assembly, for Winsted to be made a town, may be granted by 
the General Assembly, if they see fit to grant the same, without opposi- 
tion from the First Society of Winchester, provided the west tier of 
lots in Winsted be not included in the proposed town of Winsted. 
This project, now agitated for the first time, was repeatedly revived in 
after years. The main reasons for seeking a division of the town were, 
the want of a central place for public meetings, and the separation of the 
two portions by Long Lake, and the mountain ridges along the south- 
westerly side of Mad River, rendering communication difficult. Added to 
this was an embittered local feeling growing out of the superior number 
and refinement of the people of the " Old Society," who had become or- 
ganized and assimilated ; while the sparse population of Winsted was as 
yet in a state of comparative poverty and barbarism. The projected 
town of Winsted was to embrace the eastern third part of Winchester, and 
the part of Barkhamsted west of Farmington River. Similar difficulties 
of communication, arising from the chain of mountains west of the river 
cutting off" the dwellers along the Farmington valley, rendered the new 
organization so objectionable that all the applications to the assembly were 
unsuccessful ; and the growth of the village of Winsted has put an end to 
all desire for a separation. 

Moses Darbe, named of Norfolk, this year bought the lot on South 
street, now owned by Jonathan Gilbert, on which he lived a short time. 
He is named of Norfolk in 1789. 

Benjamin De Wolf, " of Killingworth," this year bought jointly with 
his brother Daniel the lot on Spencer street, on which widow Lucy Coe 
now lives. About 1792 he bought and lived in a house now torn down 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 301 

on West Lake street, nearly opposite the John Stabell house, which he 
sold in 1805 to Benjamin Johnson. He lived in Winsted several years 
later, and worked in a wooden dish mill on the lake stream. He was a 
man of violent passions and a blistering tongue, sometimes very pious in 
profession, but always quarrelsome and mischievous. He married. May, 
1786, Jerusha Carter. 

CHILDREN. 

I. James (twin), b. Oct. 20, 1786. 

II. Charlotte (twin), b. Oct. 20, 1786. 

III. Miller, b. May 21, 1790. 

IV. Alvah, b. July 7, 1792. 

They had several other children whose names are not recorded. 

Daniel DeWolf, from Killingworth, lived with his brother Benja- 
min, on Spencer street, until 1793, when he bought and removed to a 
lot adjoining Colebrook line, opposite William E. Cowles, on wbich he 
lived until his removal to the northeast part of Colebrook. He was 
father and grandfather to the De Wolfs now at Colebrook River. 

Eleazer Kellogg, from Barkhamsted, lived from 1787 to 1791, 
on the farm lately owned by Roswell Smith, in the northeast part of the 
town. Wife, Esther. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elijah ('twill), ra. Oct. 23, 1794, Mabel Clement. 
II. Elisha " m. June 28, 1792, Persis Dunham. 

III. Isaac. 

IV. Esther, b. Nov. 14, 1789. 

V. Crdsa, (dau.) b. Aug. 13, 1791. 



Caleb Munson, Jr., from Waterbury, Middlebury Society, came to 
Winsted this year, and owned and occupied the David N. Beardsley 
farm, on the old hill road to Colebrook, living on the west side of the 
road in a house (now torn down) afterwards successively occupied by 
James Eggleston, Hine demons, Joseph Loomis, Stephen Hart, Cyrus 
Buttrick, and others. About 1800 he lived in a house, now torn down, 
on Lake street, near the "Old Factory house." About 1807, he migrat- 
ed to Marcellus, N. Y. He m. April 20, 1790, Mabel Tuttle. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Caleb Miles, b. Jan. 15, 1792. 

II. Glover Street, b. May 14, 1794. 

III. Leve Benham (dau.), b. Jan. 13, 1797. 

IV. Azcbah, b. May 21, 1799 ; d. Oct. 17, 1799. 



302 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



V. Alvira, 
VI. Jerry, 
VII. Lucy, 



b. Nov. 24, 1800. 
b. March 25, 1803. 
b. March 8, 1806. 



Norton Wrioht, oldest son of Moses, and brother of Alvin of Cole- 
brook, lived in the old deserted house on the east side of the Old Still 
River Turnpike, near Colebrook line, from this year until 1817, when he 
moved to Western or Northern New York. He m., July 7, 1781, Lucy 
Banning. 

CHILDREN. 



I. Samuel, 
II. Lucy, 

III. Sarah, 

IV. Abigail, 

V. Moses Norton, 
VI. Wealthy, 
VII. Jonathan Norton, 
VIII. Moses, 



b. Aug. 9, 1792. 

b. June 21, 1794. 

b. June 5, 1796. 

b. May 23, 1798. 

b. Sept. 1, 1800; d. 1803. 

b. Oct. 2, 1802. 

b. Oct. 31, 1805. 

b. Nov. 21, 1807. 



1788. 

Deacon Shubael Cook and Uri.tah Cook, of Winsted, herein- 
after mentioned, were sons of Deacon John Cook, 4 of Torrington, 
who was son of John, 3 b. in Windsor in 1692, and d. May 25, 1751 : 
grandson of John, 2 b. Windsor, April 3, 1662; m. Nov. 26, 1686, Mary 
Downs, of Northampton ; and great grand-son of Nathaniel, 1 an early 
resident of Windsor, who m. June 29, 1649, Sarah Vare. 

He, Deacon John 4 , m. June 22, 1741, Rachel Wilson, of Windsor. 
They were among the constituent members of the First Church of Tor- 
rington, Oct. 21, 1741. 

CHILDREN. 



I. Rachel, 5 
II. John, 5 

III. Eunice, 5 

Chester. 

IV. Frances, 5 

V. Dea. Shubael, 5 
VI. Sarah, 5 
VII. Ede, 6 
VIII. Urijah, 5 
IX. Lucy, 5 

X. Hannah, 5 
XI. Elihu, 5 
XII. Elihu, 5 
XIII. Mary, 5 



b. May 2, 1742; m. David Soper. 

b. Aug. 29, 1743 ; d. in Torrington, aged 80. 

b. March 5, 1746; m. Ensign Jonathan Coe, of Win- 

b. Sept. 18, 1747; d. Dec. 23, 1750. 

b. April 21, 1749. 

b. Oct. 31, 1750 ; m. Hurlbut. 

1). Nov. 28, 1752 ; d. in early life. 

b. Sept., 1754. 

b. Oct. 3, 1756; m. Moses Looniis. 

b. Match 13, 1758 ; in. Simeon More. 

b. March 18, 1760; d. July 20, 1760. 

1>. March 29, 1761 ; d. in Torrington. 

b. Nov. 10, 1764; d. in early life. 





/;, -s'A^ C^'A 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 303 

Deacon Shurael Cook came to Winsted in 1792, and settled on 
the Daniel Tuttle farm, adjoining Torringford line on South street. 
His house, long since torn down, was on the west side of the road, a little 
north of the Daniel Tuttle house. About 1815 he removed to a house 
on the south side of Green Woods turnpike, in which he died, Dec. 27, 
1824, aged 75 years. His wife died in 1827, aged 79. In 1802, he was 
chosen Deacon of the Congregational Church, which office he filled with 
great fidelity and acceptance, until his death. Deacon Cook was a man 
of warm and cheerful piety, poor in this world's goods, but rich in Chris- 
tian attainments, and in the love of his brethren. He m. Sept. 17, 1778, 
Sarah Bassett Gillett. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Rosinda, 6 b. 1776; in. Ashcr Loomis of Windsor, where she d. in 1855. 
II. Reuben, 6 b. d. young, scalded. 

III. Ede, 6 b. 1783; d. single, Feb. 1, 1818, aged 35. 

IV. Reuben, 6 b. Sept. 10, 1786. 



Urijah Cook, s came to Winsted in 1788, and settled on the east 
side of Spencer street. He built and lived in the Lockwood House, at 
the top of the hill, in sight of the West Village. In 1819, he sold out 
and removed to Barkhamsted (Wallen's Hill), where he died June 28, 
1832, aged 73. His wife (Submit) d. Dec. 16, 1844, aged 88. In addi- 
tion to farming, he carried on brick making in a swale at the east end of 
his farm, in the early part of this century. He was a man of ardent 
temperament, a zealous Federalist, and equally zealous theologian of the 
Hamiltonian and Hopkinsian schools, — not over tolerant of opposing 
views, either in politics or religion. In his old age, Christian charity pre- 
dominated over party and sectarian zeal, and he died in peace and love 
with all men. He m. Feb. 8, 1779, Submit Tuttle. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Anson, 6 b. in Torrington, Oct. 4, 1779. 

II. Lois, 6 b. " March 25, 1781 ; m. Giles Russell. 

III. Sally, 6 b. " March 28, 1782; d. tram. 

IV. Rhoda, 6 (twin), b. Winsted, Jan. 7, 1790; d. April 29, 1807. 
V. Rachel, 6 " b. Jan. 7, 1790; m. Hamlin Russell. 

VI. Huldah, 6 b. Feb. 9, 1795. 

VII. Philo, 6 b. Sept. 28, 1798; m. a dau. of Capt. William Swift, 

of Colebrook, moved with his father to Barkhamsted, where he d. about 
1858, s. p. 

Reuben Cook," son of Dea. Shubael, 5 came to Winsted with his 
f ather, — was clerk for S. Rockwell & Brothers, and soon after coming 
of age, went into the manufacture of bar iron in the works erected by 



304 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

him on Still River, recently owned by the Cook Axle Co. He lived in 
the house on North Main street, nearly opposite the bridge leading to his 
works, until a recent period. He m. April 15, 1811, Ruth Shepard. 
She d. Jan. 8, 1841. He d. March 16, 1872. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Jerusha, 7 b. March 17, 1812; m. Jan. 1856, Daniel Spring. 
II. Sarah, 7 b. June 9, 1813 ; m. Shepard S. Wheeler; d. Feb. 8, 1855. 

III. Charles, 7 b. Oct. 15, 1815; m. Sept., 1837, Mary Jane Lewis, of 

Suffield. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Jane Elizabeth, 8 b. 1838; d. June, 1842; 2. Rollin Hillyer, 8 b. 
Aug. 24, 1844, m. June — , 1866, Minnie Graves, of New Milford ; 
she d. Oct. 20, 1868, leaving children, Minnie Graves, 9 b. June, 
1867, and Eliza Jane, 9 b. Sept. 30, 1868. 

IV. Harriet, 7 b. May 29, 1818; m. Sept. 7, 1853, Eli R. Miller. 
V. Julia, 7 b. Dec. 1, 1820; d. Jan. 22, 1837. 

VI. John R., 7 b. Feb. 18, 1823; in. Oct. 15, 1845, Marietta A. Phelps, of 

Norfolk; she d. Jan. 21, 1861 ; and he m. (2d) Sept. 29, 1863, Jane M. 
Dickinson, of New Britain. 

children. 
1. John Phelps, 8 b. Jan. 25, 1849 ; 2. Eliza Phelps, 8 b. Feb. 15, 1851 ; 
3. Marietta, 8 b. June 5, 1861, d. at Chicago, July 12, 1864. 

Anson Cook, 6 son of Urijah, came with his father to Winsted. He 
was by trade a millwright, and lived for several years in the west village, 
and afterward in a house on the north side of the Walleu's Hill road, a 
little east of the clock shop, until a few years before his death, when he 
removed to the house in the east village immediately south of the Epis- 
copal Church, in which he died December 17, 1860, aged 81. His 
wife, Amelia, died May 15, 1851, aged 70. He was an industrious, 
quiet, upright man, and sincere Christian. He married, December 31, 
1806, Amelia Hinsdale, sister of Colonel Hosea. She died May 15, 
1851, aged 70. 

CHILDREN. 

I. James, 7 b. March 9, 1809. 
II. Rhoda A 7 ., b. December 16, 1810. 

III. Sherman Tuttle, 7 b. March 22, 1813; m. November 27, 1839, Cornelia 

Emeline Jacqua, b. Canaan, October 16, 1817. She died by a railroad 
accident about 1858, and he married, 2d, Mrs. Lucia (Stillman) Cross. 

children. 

1. Edward Sherman, b. December 20, 1841. 

2. Frederick Monroe, b. March 28, 1843. 

3. Cornelia Elvira, b. September 15, 1850. 

4. Emma Amelia, b. October 3, 1853. 

IV. Anson Bissell, 7 b. December 12, 1814. 
V. Laura, 7 b. May 24, 1818. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 305 

Lieutenant Jonathan Dunham, named of Colchester, this year 
bought a part of the Moses M. Camp farm on South street, on which he 
lived until 1790, when he moved to the highest point of Wallen's Hill, 
and lived until 1800 in the house afterward occupied successively by 
Reuben Palmer and George Treal, and now torn down, when he 
removed to Whitestown, Oneida Co., N. Y. His children are not on our 
records. The following may be only an incomplete list of them : — 

Jonathan Dunham, Junior, married, November 24, 1791, Susanna 
Kellogg. 

Elias Dunham married, March 10, 1791, Jerusha Lewis. 
Mehitabel Dunham, married Asher Rowley. 

Hazael Dunham, married Abigail Rowley ; lived in Utica, N. Y. 
William Dunham, settled between Erie and Ashtabula, O. 

Deacon Michael Guinnell's name is on the tax list of this year. 
He was born in Saybrook, Conn., March 20, 1752; removed with his 
parents to Salisbury, Conn., at the beginning of the Revolution, and 
about 1788 came to Winsted. He first owned land on the east side of 
Long Lake. In 1793 he bought the Wedge lot at the northeast corner 
of the town, lately owned by Joel Mead, on- which he lived (in the 
Partridge House) until 1823, when he removed to Clinton, Wayne Co., 
Penn., where he resided until his death, on the 12th day of February, 
1858, aged pne hundred and six years. He served in the Revolutionary 
Army, and witnessed the tearing down of the leaden statute of George 
III. at the Bowling Green in New York. His hearing almost entirely 
failed during the last thirty years of his life, while his sight continued 
nearly unimpaired until past his hundredth year. He was a deacon of 
the Baptist Church in this town, and was always in his place in the 
stated meetings of the Church, until more than one hundred years old. 
He married in 1777, Susanna Balcom, perhaps daughter of John ; she 
died in August, 1825, aged 70 years. Of their six children only two 
births are recorded in this town. 

children. 

I. Rufus, b. in Salisbury ; lived in this town on the old North road, nearly 
opposite Kilcy Smith's, from 1805 to 1810, and afterward removed to 
Clinton, Penn. His second wife was Harriet, daughter of Grinnell 
Spencer, and widow of Sheldon Norton. 
II. Bedlah, b. December 31, 1787. 
III. Michael, b. May 28, 1790; m. Susan Hurlbut, b. Goshen, Conn., March 
26, 1788, daughter of Gideon and Anna (Beach) Hurlbut. They had 
• two sons and two daughters. He d. November 30, 1857. She was 
living in 1858, and so were Sally and Sibyl, her sisters, who were born 
at the same birth with her. 

39 



306 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Salmon Treat came from Wethersfield, when a boy, with Deacon 
Josiah Smith, from whom he this year received a deed of the farm on 
Wallen's Hill, now owned and occupied by his son Sylvester, on which 
he lived during the remainder of his long life. He died March 30, 
1858, aged 91. He married November 2, 1794, Esther, daughter of 
Elisha Mallory, who died August 21, 1853, aged 79. They had sons, 
George, Syra, Asa, Sylvester, Luke, Luther, and a daughter Betsey, who 
married, April 17, 183.1, Asahel Castle of Harwinton. No record of 
their births is found. 

William Waterman, Jr., lived, it is believed, on the premises east 
of the Still River turnpike, near the Halsey Burr place. There is a 
tradition of his being routed out of the town, in consequence of the 
quarters, hide and horns of an ox belonging to his neighbor Captain 
Whitford being found ingeniously hid under a pile of lumber near his 
house. There appears to have been also a William Waterman, Senior. 
There is a quit claim in 1793 of the interest by inheritance or otherwise 
in the same land by Walter, Zebulon, Lucy, John, and Fanny Waterman 
of Barkhamsted. 



1789. 

Daniel Eggleston, Jr., from Colebrook, bought land in the town this 
year, and his name also appears on the tax list as a resident. His farm 
on the old road adjoining Colebrook line is now owned by William E. 
Cowles. He died on this farm about 1820. Wife, Anne. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Erastds. 
II. Chauncet, m. Chloe Coe. 

III. Nancy-. 

IV. Anne, b. Winstcd, July 17, 1792. 
V. Sidney. 

Daniel Eggleston, Senior, was of Winchester in March, 1779, 
and by wife Sarah had daughter Sarah, born September 17, 1779. He 
was from Windsor, and removed to Colebrook as early as 1785. None 
of the family remain in town. 

Lewis Miller, probably from Torrington, is on the list of this year. 
He lived from 179G to about 1803 or 1804 in a small house that stood 
on north side of West Lake street, in front of the Sherman T. Cook 
house. He had a wooden dish mill on or near the site of the Beardsley 
Scythe Co.'s grinding works. He went to parts unknown not far from 
1803, leaving behind him a wife and 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 307 



CHILDREN. 

I. Belinda, the first wife of James C. Cleveland; she died December 26, 
1819, aged 27. 
II. Sheldon, 1>. November 10, 1799. 

III. Aurelia, d. young. 

IV. George. 

Sheldon Miller married, October 31, 1822, Jerusha Ann Stark- 
weather. 

children. 

I. Lewis Allen, b. Nov. 3, 1823; m. in Lee, Mass., April 8, 1846, Phebe 
Ann Sheffield, b. Stonington, Jan. 21, 1822. Children: Frances Ame- 
lia, b. Lee, Aug. 11, 1847 ; Edward Lewis (twin), b. Lee, April 2, 1851 ; 
Eunice Louisa (twin), b. Lee, April 2, 1851. 
II. George Hudson, b. June 24, 1825; m. in Canaan, N. Y., October 16, 1848, 
Eusebia N. Herrick. Chi'dren : Emma Jane, b. West Stockbridge, 
Nov. 9, 1849 ; d. July 13, 1850 ; Eva Maria, b. West Stockbridge, June 
6, 1857. 

III. Henry Elijah, b. April 18, 1830; m., Nov. 29, 1853, Caroline Moore. 

IV. Laura Ann, b. Aug. 29, 1832; m. May 7, 1851, Henry McCullock. Chil- 

dren: 1. Agnes Marilla, b. April 9, 1852; 2. Albert Henry, b. April 5, 
1S53, d. Aug. 28, 1853 ; 3. Lila Ann, b. May 1, 1855, d. March 8, 1857 ; 
4. Charles Sheldon, b. April 8, 1857. 
V. Mart Maria, b. Dec. 6, 1841 ; d. March 23, 1842. 
VI. Mary Jerusha, b. Jan. 13, 1844. 

Daniel Marshall, son of Eliakim of Windsor, first appears on the 
list of this year as a resident. He built a fulling mill on the lake stream 
below the works of the Henry Spring Co., and a clothier shop where 
Lake street now runs above the stone tenement house of E. Beardsley. 
He resided until his death in a dwelling house which stood adjoining his 
clothier shop. He died in 1804, and was buried in the old burying 
ground above the clock shop. His monument is the only one now stand- 
ing in that ground. Wife Sarah. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abraham, b. April 11, 1789. III. Daniel, b. June 12, 1792. 

II. Lucy, b. July 6, 1790. IV. Garrison, b. July 20, 1794. 

1790. 

John Burton, supposed from Middlebury, this year bought the farm 
on the hill road to Colebrook, now owned by David N. Beardsley,' on 
which he lived until about 1810, and then removed from the town. He 
married, May 7, 1787, Phebe Wooster. She died February 15, 1807 ; 
he married (2d) Hannah, daughter of George Miller. 



308 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sally, b. March 10, 1789; m. Spencer Shattuck. 

II. Silas, b. March 15, 1781 ; m. Lucia, (laughter of Asahel Miller. 

III. David, b. Feb. 18, 1793. 

IV. Polly, b. May 12, 1795. 

Thaddeus Fay's name is on the list of this year. He owned the part 
of the Augustus Perkins farm lying west of the brook, and lived in a log 
house on the original road from Old Winchester to Colebrook, which has 
been discontinued since about 1800. He died September 1, 1798, aged 
about 30 years. He married, October 7, 1793, Esther Lucas. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lucy, b. May 1, 1794. 

II. Electa, b. Feb. 5, 1796; d. Feb. 8, 1796. 

III. Sally, b. March 20, 1797 ; d. June 25, 1797. 

IV. Thaddeus, b. Nov. 11, 1798; d. next day. 

Ezra Griffin, from Barkhamsted, owned land lying east of the Win- 
sted Manufacturing Company's Works from 1788 to 1794, and is on the 
list as a resident this year only. He is named of Barkhamsted in 1794. 
Wife Margery. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Abigail, b. Dec. 12, 1785. 
II. Elizabeth, b. Nov. 17, 1788. 
III. Sevilla, b. October 6, 1790; d. Aug. 11, 1792. 

TnEODORE Hoskin, son of Joseph, 1 who removed from Torrington to 
Old Winchester in 1771, this year came to Winsted and settled on the 
old Colebrook road, and built the house now occupied by his son-in-law, 
Alvah Oakley, in which he resided until his death, December 18, 1839, 
aged 74. Eunice, his wife, died June 4, 1849, aged 83. The names and 
births of his children are given in connection with the family of Joseph 
Hoskin. He wore, as did others in his day, a cue which hung down his 
back some fifteen inches. He persisted in wearing it after most of his 
cotemporaries had abandoned their "caudal appendages," and would 
probably have carried it with him to the grave had not the doctor ordered 
it to be "exscinded" while he was confined to his bed with sickness. 

Roswell Hqskin, brother of Theodore, came with him to Winsted, 
and was joint owner with him of the farm, which he quit-claimed to The- 
odore in 1792. He afterward removed to Vernon, N. Y. 

Solomon Palmer, son of Enoch, a shoemaker, this year bought land 
on Wallen's Hill, and lived in a log-house on the higkway'at the east line 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 309 

of the town, between Harris Brown's and the Wallen's Hill school house. 
He is named in 1795 of Barkhamsted. He married, October 14, 1787, 
Hannah De Wolf. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Stephen De Wolf, b. April 3, 1788. 
II. Lamentine, (dau.) b. Jan. 7, 1791. 

Jonathan Rogers, from Lynn, a blacksmith, and brother of Simeon, 
already named, owned the land on which the houses of John Camp and 
Edward Whiting stand, and extending from the east side of Still River 
westerly to the second tier line. His house and shop stood on the road 
then running along the east side of the river. He sold out in 1794, and 
is named of New Marlborough, Mass., in 1798. Wife Ruhama. 

CHILDREN. 

I. William Peck, b. June 1, 1790. 

II. Joseph (twin), b. Nov. 17, 1792. 

III. Benjamin (twin), b. Nov. 17, 1792. 

Joseph Loomis, from Torrington, this year bought of John Burton, a 
part of the D. N. Beardsley farm, on the hill road to Colebrook, and sold 
the same to Asahel Miller in 1800. He is named of New Hartford in 
1806, in a joint deed of himself and his wife Mary, who is described as 
daughter of David Crissey. 

1791. 
Jonathan Coe, 3d, son of Ensign Jonathan, of Winchester, this year 
came to Winsted, and built the rear wing of the red house on the Cole- 
brook road, one mile northerly from We-t Winsted, now owned by Judson 
Wads worth. The upright part of the house was built soon after 1800. 
In this house he lived until about 1830, when he built and moved into the 
brick house, on the west side of the same road, now owned by his son 
Jehiel Coe, in which he died May 31, 1849, aged 79. He was a tall, 
reverend-looking man, slow of speech, a man of great shrewdness and 
moderation, an early Methodist and a Jeffersonian Democrat ; steadfast 
in the support, of his sect, yet catholic in spirit : zealous in politics, yet 
incapable of changing his principles to square with the changing ideas of 
party expediency. When it became democratic to ignore the manhood of 
the African race and deny the right of petition and free speech in its be- 
half, he cheerfully accepted the offensive epithet of Abolitionist, and stood 
in the front rank of the little band that battled for the right and prevailed. 
He died with his armor on, while the conflict seemed doubtful to men of 
feeble faith. In him there was no doubt, no fear, nor trembling. When 



310 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

the minister refused to read from the pulpit the notices of prayer meetings 
for the slave, he would rise from his pew and give the announcement. 
His house was one of the stations of the " Underground Railroad " from 
Dixie to Canada, where the panting fugitive was fed, clothed, and speeded 
on his journey. His influence in the town during his middle age probably 
transcended that of any other man. He held at different times nearly 
every town office, and represented the town in the Assembly in four ses- 
sions between 1822 and 1828. His family record has already been given 
on page 53. 



CHAPTER XXIIi: 

winsted immigrants and family records continued. 
From 1791 to 1801. 



1792. 
Jenkins & Boyd, tlie pioneer manufacturers of Winsted, came into 
the Society this year, and erected the first scythe factory in the state 
and the third in the country, on the site of the Winsted Manufacturing 
Company's East Village Works. About 1795, in company witli Thomas 
Spencer, Jr., they erected the first forge for making bar iron in the 
town, on the lake stream, opposite the grinding shop of the Winsted 
Manufacturing Company. In 1802 they erected another scythe factory 
on the site of the Winsted Hoe Company's shop, near the corner of Lake 
and Meadow streets. 

Benjamin Jenkins, of the above firm, was born October 15th, 1765, 
at Scituate, Mass., and learned the scythe maker's trade of Colonel 
Robert Orr of Bridgewater, Mass., who was the first manufacturer of 
scythes by water-power in this country. From Bridgewater he went to 
New Windsor, adjoining Newburg, N. Y., as foreman of the scythe works 
erected by Colonel Robert Boyd, where he married, September 10, 1791, 
Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Boyd of Little Britain, soon after which 
he removed to Torrington, and thence in 1792 to Winsted. In company 
with Mr. Boyd he built, in 1795, the double house afterward owned and 
occupied by Rev. James Beach, in which he lived until about 1806, when 
he built and moved into the original building of the Winsted Hotel. In 
1812, he built a scythe shop on the site of the Strong Manufacturing 
Company's Works, which he carried on until about 1816. In 1818 he 
removed with his family to Wayne County, Penu., and began the world 
anew, in the then unbroken forest, on the Lackawaxen, four miles west 
of Honesdale. Here he cleared up a new home, built a scythe shop and 
saw mill before the first explorers of the Hudson and Delaware Canal 
and Rail Road route visited that region, and before Honesdale existed. 
The rail road was located through his farm, and the pleasant village of 
Prompton grew up around him, and principally on the land which he 
had first cleared. Here he lived to a good old age, the pioneer and 



V. 


Lionel, 


1). 


1799 


VI. 


Louisa, 


b. 


1801 


VII. 


Edward, 


b. 


1804 


PHI. 


Maria, 


b. 


1806 


IX. 


John, 


b. 


1808 


X. 


Henrietta, 


b. 


1810 


XI. 


Marietta, 


b. 


1812 



312 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

revered patriarch of a region which he had first entered at the age of 
fifty-two. Fie died January 18, 1853, aged 87 years, 4 months and 26 
days. His wife, with whom he had lived more than sixty years, died 
April 25, 1851, aged 81. 

Mr. Jenkins was a man of fine personal appearance, and pleasing 
address — genial and kind-hearted — liberal and public-spirited — ener- 
getic and honorable — a good husband and kind parent. 

He represented the town in the general assembly in 1803 and 1804. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, b October 5, 1792 ; m. Horace Kent of Boston; d. October 
24, 1S20. 
II. Susan, b. April 25, 1794 ; m. Doctor Henry Noble ; d. 1814. 

III. Benjamin, Jr., 1). December 6, 1796 ; m. October 4, 1820, Mary Kent. 

IV. Samuel, b. December 4, 1798; m. 1st, Elizabeth Buckland; 2d, 

Mary Jane Buckland. 

d. May 18, 1807. 

m. 1st, Arab Bartlett ; 2d, Jacob S. Davis, 
d. 1854, unmarried. 
m. Ralph Case. 
m. Jane Greeley, 
m. Luman Hubbell. 
b. 1812; m. Benjamin Jenkins 3d; she d. 1842. 

James Boyd 3 came to Winsted with his brother-in-law and partner, 
Benjamin Jenkins, in 1792, having previously learned from him the 
scythe maker's trade at New Windsor, his native place. He first lived 
in a small house that stood on the west side of North Main street, nearly 
opposite the parsonage house of Rev. James Beach, which was built by 
him and his partner in 1795, and jointly occupied by them until 1802. 
He then built and moved into the house on the east side of Main street, 
west village, opposite Munro street, now owned by John T. Rockwell, 
where he spent his remaining life, and died February 1, 1849, aged 78 
years. In 1803 he dissolved partnership with Mr. Jenkins, taking for 
his share the joint property of the firm in the west village. In 1808 he 
built a forge and saw mill on the water-power opposite the Clarke House, 
now owned by the New England Pin Company. In 1822 he built a 
drafting and forging shop in rear of the Beardsley House, and in 1828 he 
rebuilt the " Upper Forge," on the lake stream, above Hulbert's present 
iron works. He also built, in 1816, the old iron store on Main street, 
next north of Dudley's brick block. 

He was a man of indomitable energy. Few men ever did more hard 
work, and more thoroughly managed a large business than he, until past 
the prime of life. Frugal and temperate in all his habits, and retiring 
in his disposition, he was also public-spirited and benevolent. No 
wandering outcast, however degraded, ever turned away from his door 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 313 

without food, and lodging if needed. With a good common school educa- 
tion, lie possessed a strong, discriminating mind and studious habits. His 
range of reading extended from " Tristram Shandy " through general 
history to " Edward's on the Will," and other abstruse theology. 
Trained in the faith of the Scotch seceders, he made the Bible his con- 
stant study, and deduced from it his own independent belief, matured by 
careful study, and reverently cherished. With an erect figure and rapid 
gait, he had a sternness of aspect and an immovable decision which 
repelled familiarity ; yet, he had a strength of affection and tenderness of 
heart little realized by those who superficially knew him. Perfect 
integrity was a dominant trait of his character. 

The Little Britain branch of the Boyd family, to which he belonged, 
was of the Kilmarnock stock, originating in Ayrshire, Scotland, trans- 
ferred to County Down in the North of Ireland, from whence four 
brothers, Samuel, Robert, James, and Nathaniel Boyd migrated to 
America. 

Samuel Boyd, the oldest of the brothers, may have been the one 
among the so-named North of Ireland men who came over to found the 
Londonderry settlement in New Hampshire about 1720, many of whom 
finally went to other places. He settled in the City of New York about 
that period, accumulated a large estate, and died a bachelor. By his aid 
ami counsel, his three brothers, before named, and a sister Mary, who 
married — Wargh, came over from County Down, and settled in the 
town of New Windsor, Orange Co., N. Y. 

Robert Boyd, above-named, settled at New Windsor, near the mouth 
of the creek which empties into the Hudson a mile below Newburgh. 
He had a son Robert, 2 and a daughter Mary, 2 who married — Harris. 

Colonel Robert Boyd 2 erected iron and scythe works on the creek 
before mentioned. He inherited the estate of his bachelor uncle, and 
removed to the City of New York early in this century, and there held 
the office of sheriff of the county. He died Oct. 29., 1804, aged 70, as ap- 
pears on his monument in Little Britain Church-yard. He married — 
Smith, and had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Samuel, a Connscllor-at law in the City of New York. 

II. John, of ( igdensburg, Sheriff of St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. 

III. Jennett, wife of Rev. James Schrimgcozir. 

IV. Agnes, wife of Dr. Baltus Van Kleek. 
V. Elias, died a bachelor. 

VI. Geokge, Episcopal clergyman, Philadelphia. 
40 



314 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Nathaniel Boyd, the fourth brother, lived in Little Britain Parish, 
New Windsor, and had sixteen children by his first and second wives. 

BY MARGARET BECK. 

I. Jane, w. of — Butler. 
II. John, of Amenia, N. Y. 

III. Samuel. 

IV. James S. 

V. Mary, w. of William Bradner. 
VI. Nathaniel. 2 
VII. Martha, w. of — Homan. 

BY MARTHA MONSEL. 

VIII. Jane. 2 
IX. Elizabeth. 2 
X. Nathaniel. 2 
XI. Mary, 2 w. of — Thompson of Esopus. 
XII. Charles. 2 

XIII. Hannah, 2 w. of — Alexander. 

XIV. Jane. 2 

XV. Robert W. 2 
XVI. Nathaniel. 2 

James Boyd, 1 the third brother, sailed from Belfast, Ireland, August 
9, 1756, with his second wife and children, whose names and date of 
birth are recorded in his family bible, as follows : — 

BY SARAn, HIS FIRST WIFE. 

I. Samuel, 2 b. 1734. 

II. Sarah, 2 b. August 13, 1738. 

III. Robert, 2 b. January 10, 1740. 

IV. Mauy, 2 b. March 28, 1742, married and settled in Scotland. 
V. Jean, 2 b. January 20, 1749; m. — Sopcr of Esopus, N. Y. 

BY MARY, SECOND WIFE. 

VI. Seaborn Agnes, 2 born on the voyage, September 23, 1756; m. Richard 
Hudson of Newburg. 
VII. James 2 (date of birth torn off). 
VIII. Elizabeth, 2 b. February (torn off) ; m. — Belknap of Newburgh, N. Y. 
IX. David, 2 b. December , of Phelps, Ontario Co., N. Y. 

X. Nathaniel, 2 b. 
XL Alice, 2 b. ; m. John Wood. 

Samuel Boyd, 2 oldest son of James, 1 visited America four years 
earlier than his father, and returned to Ireland, whence he came back as 
a permanent settler in 1756, and thereafter resided in Little Britain Par- 
ish until his death, May 27, 1801, in his sixty-seventh year. He served 
in the French Canadian War, and furnished a substitute in the Revolu- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 315 

tion. He m. (1st) Elizabeth, dau. of Mathew McDoel, of New Wind- 
sor, who d. Aug. 25, 1775, and (2d) Mary Lyon, who d. in IS 12, s. p. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Elizabeth, 3 b. at Little Britain, N. Y., 17G9; in. Benjamin Jenkina. 
II. James, 3 b. L. B., Nov. 15, 1770. 

III. Mathew, 3 b. d. young. 

IV. John, 3 b. d. young. 

James Boyd, 3 son of Samuel, 2 settled in Winsted as already stated. 
He m. at Torringford, Conn., Dec. 23, 1795, Mary Munro, b. Boston, 

Mass., March 10, 1771, dau. of Alexander and (Mcintosh) Munro, 

from Inverness, Scotland. She d., Winsted, Sept. 2, 1821 ; and he m. (2d) 
June 27, 1822, Jane Munro, b. at Bridgewater, Mass., June 8, 1788, dau. 
of Alexander and — (Hutchinson) Munro, and half-sister of his first wife. 
She d., Winsted, Dec. 29, 1852. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Nancy, 4 b. May 27, 1797 ; m. 1820, Lucius Clarke. 

II. John 4 (twin), b. March 17, 1799. 

III. James Munro 4 (twin), b. March 17, 1799; d. Aug. 23, 1826. 

IV. Eliza, 4 b. March 18, 1801 ; d. April 1, 1801. 
V. Samuel, 4 b. June 24, 1802. 

VI. Eliza, 4 b. June 25, 1804; d. Sept. 10, 1821. 

VII. Mary, 4 b. Aug. 11, 1807 ; d. Aug. 30, 1821. 

VIII. Jane Munro, 4 b. Dec. 10, 1812; m. Luman Hubbell. 

IX. Susan, 4 b. March 19, 1815; m. Sept. 7, 1836, Elijah Phelps 

Grant, b. Norfolk, Conn., Aug. 23, 1808, son of Dea. Elijah and Eliza- 
beth (Phelps) Grant. He graduated Yale College, 1830; lives at Can- 
ton, Ohio; a lawyer and banker. Children, all born in Canton, Ohio : 
1. Elizabeth, b. May 21, 1838; m. May 18, 1858, Thomas J. Hurfurd, 
of Omaha, Neb.; 2. Susan, b. Jan. 8, 1841 ; d. July 19, 1841 ; 3. Ma- 
ry, b. Sept. 12, 1842; m. ; 4. Charles 
Fourier, b. Aug. 12, 1844; d. May 25, 1845; 5. Jane, b. Nov. 27, 
1846; 6. Martha A., b. April 30, 1849; d. June 27, 1859; 7. James 
Boyd, b. Nov. 10, 1S53. 
X. Alexander Munro, 4 b. July 2, 1S23; d. June 12, 1824. 
XL Jennett, 4 b. May 16, 1825; d. April 14, 1827. 
XII. Elizabeth, 4 b. Oct. 23, 1827; m. June 1, 1859, Stephen A.Hub- 
bard, b. Sunderland, Mass. 
XIII. Robert Lewis, 4 b. Aug. 15, 1831 ; commenced and carried on the 
manufacture of planter's hoes, in Winsted, from 1852 to 1860; then 
went to New York, where he now resides. He m. Nov. 6, 1862, Helen 
A. Peck, dau. of Edward B. and Mary Ann Peck, of Fairfield Co., 
Conn., b. April 18, 1840. Her name changed, by adoption, to Helen 
Annette Wooster, in which name she was married. 

children. 

1. Anna, b. N. Y. city, June 30, 1864 ; d. July 2, 1864. 

2. A son, still born, in Brooklyn, July 6, 1865. 



316 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

3. Ralph Booth, b. Brooklyn, June 4, 1866. 

4. Louis Roland, b. Brooklyn, Dec. 10, 1S67; cl. Aug. 13, 1868. 

5. James Hubbcll, b. in B., Nov. 13, 1869; cl. Aug. 17, 1870. 



John Boyd, 4 m., New Haven, May 17, 1831, Emily Webster Beers, 
b. N. II., March, 1805, dau. of Elias and Jerusha (Fitch) Beers. She 
d. Nov. 25, 1842; and he m. (2d) Dec. 10, 1843, Mrs. Jerusha (Rock- 
well) Hinsdale, widow of Theodore Hinsdale, and dau. of Solomon and 
Sarah (McEwen) Rockwell. He grad. Yale Coll. 1821; admitted to 
the bar of New Haven Co., 1825; Rep. General Assembly, 1830 and 
1835; County Commissioner, 1840, 1849, and 1850. Town Clerk, 
1829-33, 1837-41, and from 1855, to the present time, Judge of Pro- 
bate for fifteen years, till disqualified by age, in 18G9 ; State Senator-, 
1854; Secretary of State of Conn., 1859, 1860, and 1861 ; a manufact- 
urer of the firm of J. Boyd & Son, 1827 to 1850, afterwards to 1853, 
alone. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Ellen Wright, 5 b. Sept. 3, 1833. 

II. James Alexander, 5 b. Nov. 12, 1835; cl. Oct. 5, 1837. 
III. Emily Beers, 5 b. June 23, 1842; d. Oct, 16, 1852. 

James Munro Boyd, 4 was trained to business as an iron manufact- 
urer and trader, under his father, which he followed with decided ability 
and energy until his death. He was an extensive reader, social, warm- 
hearted and upright. He died unmarried, Aug. 28, 1826, beloved and 
lamented. 

Samuel Boyd, 4 m. Sept. 20, 1825, Sylvia Coe, b. Aug. 12, 1806, 
dau. of Jonathan and Charlotte (Spencer) Coe. He was a trader and 
manufacturer in Winsted, till 1833; Custom House Appraiser in New 
Orleans, till 1850; Commission Hardware in New York, till 1860; 
Appraiser in Custom House, in N. Y. to the present time. 

CIIILDREN. 

I. James Munro, 5 b. Winsted, Sept. 28, 1826; was drowned in Mad 
River, June 10, 1829. 
II. Marianne, 6 ' b. W., July 31, 1828; m. Aug. 28, 1850, Henry Bas- 

com Keen, a merchant and banker, of New York; b. Pittsburg, Penn., 
July 18, 1825, son of Robert Lewis and Phebe A. (Page) Keen. 
Hed. Dec., 1868. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Robert Lewis, 6 b. Brooklyn, N. Y., Aug. 23, 1851 ; 2. Henry 
Boyd, 6 b. B., Jan. 9, 1854 ; 3. James Munro, b. B., July 16, 1856. 

III. Sarah Jane, 5 b. W., June 10, 1831 ; m. Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 30, 

1853, Thomas Howe Bird, b. Boston, Mass. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 317 

IV. Robert Munro, 5 b. W., Aug. 12, 1834; m. Nov. 10, 1859, Kate Baldwin 
Crane, b. Bloorafiekl, N. J., Dec. — , 1838, dan. of Matthias and Susan 
(Baldwin) Crane. He is a merchant of New York , resides at Mont 
Clair, N. J. Children : 1. Susie; 2. Robert M.; 3. Bertha. 
V. Alice Isabel, 5 b. New Orleans, La., June 26, 1845 ; in. May 11, 1869, 
Rev. Nelson Millard. Child : Ernest Boyd, b. Dec. 11, 1870. 



Cyrus Curtis, of Colebrook, bought land adjoining Colebrook line, 
and lived thereon in a house on the west side of the road above Wm. E. 
Cowles' dwelling, and prob tbly left town the next year. 

Deacon John Lee this year bought the Fyler farm, on South street, 
and lived in the Albro Fyler .house, recently burned down, until about 
1799. He was chosen Deacon of the Congregational Church in 1795. 

Epiiraiji Scovill and Reuben Scovii.l, father and son, from Col- 
chester, this year bought the farm on South street, now occupied by Good- 
loe II. Camp, winch they occupied during their remaining lives. Ephrtiim 
quit-claimed his half of the farm to Reuben in 1801, and lived not many 
years after. 

Reuben Scovill died August 5, 1821,' aged 55. He had a daughter 
Deborah who married John Maltbie ; a son, Truman, who married a 
daughter of David Talmadge and continued to occupy the homestead until 
about 1837, when he removed to Granville, Mass. ; and a daughter Lydia 
who married, January 17, 1821, Miles Marsh, of New Hartford. 

Capt. Abijaii Wilson, 2 from Torrington, this year bought land at the 
crossing of the old North Country road and the old Still River turnpike, 
and soon after built the house at that point now owned and occupied by 
his youngest son, Daniel 13. Wilson, which he occupied until his death, 
March 24, 1833, aged 8G. He was a representative of the town in 1798 
and 1802. He was born in Torrington, December 18, 1746, son of Noah 1 
and Ann Wilson ; married, October 5, 1767, Margaret Beach, of Torring- 
ton. She died 1794, aged 47, and he married (2d), Hannah Bushnell, of 
Hartland; she died June 16, 1844, aged 81. 

CHILDREN by first wife, born in torrington. 

I. Zenas, 3 b. Jan. 22, 1768; d. April 15, 1769. 

II. Zenas, 3 b. April 11, 176'J; m. Folly, daughter of Daniel Coe Hudson, 

of Torrington. 

III. Solomon, 3 b. Feb. 8, 1772; d. Nov. 26, 1775. 

IV. Reynold, 3 b. June 18, 1774. 

V. Okkel, 3 b. Jan. 5, 1777; m., 1795, Nathaniel Bacon, of Fabius, N. Y. 



318 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

VI. Abijah, 3 b. June 8, 1779; m. Lucy, daughter of Freedom Wright, of 

Winsted. 
VII. Lovisa, 3 d. unmarried, Dec. 16, 1806, aged 20. 

CHILDREN BY HIS SECOND WIFE, BORN IN WINSTED. 
VIII. Margaret, 3 m. Edgar West, of Chardon, Lake Co., Ohio. 

IX. Amanda, 3 m. Henry Munson, of Mentor, Ohio. 

X. Daniel. 3 b. Nov. 27, 1800; m., April, 1825, Adeline, daughter of Lyman 
Doolittle. 

Capt. Zenas Wilson 3 lived on the old North Country road, on the 
farm, and in the house recently sold by Henry Dowd to Allen N. Hitch- 
cock, until his removal, about 1821, to Fabius, N. Y., whence he afterward 
removed to Concord, Lake Co., 0., where he died in 1847. His wife died 
in 1843. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Ansel 4 had children, George 5 and Hiram. 5 
_JL Orrin 4 (twin) had children, Zenas 5 and Hudson. 5 
III. Orson 4 (twin) had children, Henry, 5 Eliza, 5 and Jane. 6 

Reynold Wilson 3 lived until his removal to Fabius, N. Y., about 
1815, on the farm on Wallen's Hill recently owned by Lorrin Smith. 
He married Chloe, daughter of Elisha Mallory. He died 1835. 

Abijah Wilson, Jr., 3 lived on and owned until his death the Stephen 
Rowley farm on the Old Country road west of Still River. He died 
April 17, 1813, aged 34. He married Lucy, daughter of Freedom 
Wright. He died April 17, 1813; she died November 15, 1817. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Nelson Wright, 4 b. Feb. 13, 1799; m., May 10, 1820, Wealthy Coe, 
daughter of Jonathan and Charlotte (Spencer) Coe; she d. at Sudbury, 
Vt., Feb. 2, 1S45; he d. Nov. 21, 1851. Children: 1. George Coe, 5 b. 
Dec. 13, 1S21 ; m., Lenox, Mass., Oct. 19, 1843, Caroline Miles, b. Lenox, 
Nov. 26, 1822, daughter of Richard and Rhoda (Porter) Miles. He d. 
March 4, 1854. Children : 1. Franklin Henry, 6 b. Jan. 4, 1845 ; d. Jan. 6, 
1S45; 2. James H., c b. Jan. 27, 1846; 3. Alice, 6 b. July 28, 1847 ; 4. Ida, 6 
b. June 2, 1849, d. Sept. 7, 1849; 5. Charles, 6 b. Sept, 17, 1850. 2. 
Charles Hor.ton, 5 b. May 22, 1826 ; d. May 18, 1847. 3. Harriet Elizabeth, 5 
b. April 23, 1S31 ; m. Feb. 6, 1850, Alexander Charles Thompson, b. 
Martinsburgh, N. Y., July 20, 1822, son of Enoch and Betsey (Murdoch) 
Thompson. She d. Jan. 7, 1855, s.p., and he m. (2d) May 31, 1856, Mrs. 
Caroline (Miles) Wilson, widow of George Coe Wilson. He d. July 14, 
1S66. 4. Henry, 5 b. Oct. 20, 1833; d. Oct. 19, 1836. 
II. Harriet E., 4 m., May 22, 1825, Charles W. Horton, M.D. ; had children 

Jane E., 5 and Rollin C. 5 
III. Hiram A., 4 b. Dec. 19, 1812; m., May 12, 1841, Hannah Bosworth ; grad- 
uate of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. ; late principal of Janes- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 319 

ville Academy, N. Y. Now resident of Saratoga, N. Y. Children : 
1. A son, 6 b. October, 1844, d. young; 2. Lama, 5 b. July 20, 1846, d. 
Sept. 15, 1847 ; 3. Hiram B., 5 b. April 17, 1848, d. Feb 2, 1849 ; 4. Mary 
Lcnita, 5 b. March 5, 1S50. 

Daniel B. Wilson 3 has owned and occupied the homestead of* his 
father since his death. He married, April 25, 1827, Adeline, daughter of 
Lyman Doolittle. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elvira J., 4 m., Nov. 25, 1846, V. Rollin, 4 

Allen M. Hitchcock. VI. Emorett, 4 

II. John, 4 VII. Adelaide, 4 

III. Margaret, 4 VIII. Henry, 4 

IV. Jane, 4 IX. Isabel. 4 



1793. 

Levi Ackley, from Chatham, owned and lived on a farm on the east 
side of Long Lake, now owned by John T. Rockwell. He sold out to 
John Westlake, in 1807, and removed to Tyringham, Mass., and died 
there November 10, 1817, aged 52. He married January G, 171)5, Lois 
Alvord, daughter of Eliphaz. She died April 20, 1841, aged 70. 

Jeitiel Ackley Burr, son of Jehiel Burr of Torrington and adopted 
son of Levi and Lois Ackley, born June 25, 1795, and died November 
24, 1814. 

Epapiiroditus Bligh this year bought a lot " on the brow of Dish 
Mill Hill," with a potashery, tannery and dwelling house thereon, supposed 
to be the tannery and dwelling on Still River turnpike, near Daniel B. 
Wilson's, now owned by Frederick Woodruff. He sold out to Asher 
Loomis in 1795. 

Israel Douglass this year bought the portion of West Winsted vil- 
lage lying south of M. and C. I. Camp's store and dwellings. He sold to 
Isaac Wheeler in 1795, and bought the Nisus Kinney farm, on Spencer 
street, and lived in a log house nearly opposite Amos Pierce until after 
1804, when he removed to Leyden, Lewis Co., N. Y. Wife Ruth. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Ruth, b. Oct. 29, 1794. III. Anna, b. March 10, 1798. 

II. Anselm, b. April 28, 1796. IV. Elizabeth, b. April 16, 1800. 

Benjamin Whiting, Jr., (see his father's record under 1779), this year 
bought and settled on the farm on Colebrook road lately owned by Silas 



320 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Hoskin. He lived in what is now the rear part of Mr. Hoskin's house 
until his removal to Austinburg, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, in 1811. He mar- 
ried, May 24, 1791, Rebecca Swift. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Myron, 1). Jan. 3, 1795. III. Benjamin, b. Dec. 30, 1801. 

II. Milo, b. Feb. 26, 1798. IV. Melissa, b. 

Guernsey Goff, this year bought a lot at the outlet of Long Lake, 
ou which the Beardsley saw-mill stands, which he sold out in 1794 to 
Ananias Dearthick. 

Enoch Goff, from Colchester, this year bought the Deacon Hurlbut 
farm on the east side of Long Lake, — and sold out to Levi Norton in 
1796. 

William Merriam, a joiner, this year bought the farm on Wallen's 
hill, now owned by Florin Parsons, near the school house, on which he 
lived until 1797, when he sold out to Samuel and Moses Camp. He 
married, Aug. 8, 1793, Lydia Wright. 

CHILDREN. 

I. WilEiam, b. Sept 14, 1794. 

II. Sally Weight, b. Aug. 12, 1796. 

III. Sopiironia, b. Aug. ^6, 1798. 



Joseph Mitchell, a wheelwright, from Chatham, first lived on the 
west side of South street, a little south of the Ebenezer Rowley house. 
About 1805 he built a house, recently torn down, at the east corner of 
Main and Walnut streets, in which he lived until his death April 28, 
1847, at the age of 81. No record is preserved of his family. His chil- 
dren, as far as recollected, were Seld'en, who built and occupied until 1822 
the Sheldon Kinney house, on the south side of Main street, and died 
in Granville, Mass., — Diademia, Avife of Henry S. Brown, of YVinsted, — 
Hubbard, who died in Granville, Mass., — iluldah, wife of Zenas Gady, 
and Cordelia, wife of Harmon Cady. 

Andrew Pratt, from Saybrook, this year bought of Martin Hurlbut, 
his subsequent homestead on the hill, three quarters of a mile southerly 
from the railroad depot, now occupied by his grand-son, James W. Ward. 
He was a very shy, retiring man, rarely seen away from his farm, who ac- 
quired a large estate of timber laud, which he carefully preserved during 
his life. He died May 2, 1849, aged 83. His wife died April 18, 1835, 
aged G4. He married March 7, 1796, Sarah Miller of Torrington. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 321 



CHILDREN. 

I. Sally, b. Oct. 7, 1797; m. Oct. 19, 1820, Harry Ward, of Torring- 

ton ; had one child, James W. Ward, of Winsted ; she d. 1858. 
II. Phebb, b. Feb. 22, 1800; d. single. 

III. Orkel, b. Dec. 18, 1802; d. single. 

IV. Andrew, b. ; d. 1810. 

V. Newell, b. ; m. Esther Ann Barnes ; and lived on 

part of his father's farm until 1S50, then moved to Norfolk, and from 
there to Illinois. 



1794. 

Thomas Boyd, from Amenia, New York, is on the tax list of this 
year. He married, Jan. 1, 1794, Huldah, daughter of David and Huldah 
Mills, born Oct. 19, 1776. He soon after returned to Amenia, New 
York, where lie died, leaving children, — one of whom, a son, became a 
re-ident of Alabama. 

Ananias Dearthick:, a Baptist preacher, this year bought ten acres 
of land on which now stand the Second Congregational Church, the Win- 
sted Bank, S. "VV. Coe's store, and the residences of Doctor Welch, Moses 
Camp, and Caleb J. Camp. He also owned the Beardsley saw-mill site 
and lands adjoining on the we>t, and lived in a log house thereon. He 
sold out before 1797 ; in which year he is named of Warren, in a writ be- 
fore Justice Alvord. 

James Frisbie is on the tax list of Winsted this year, with ten acres 
of land set to his name, of which the records say nothing. 

Godfrey Jones, "of Winchester," this year bought land on the hill 
road to Colebrook, between the Everitt C. Holmes and the P'lihu Rock- 
well farms, which he sold soon after. In a court record of 1796, he is 
named as " late of Hartland, Conn., and now of Burke, in the State of 
Vermont." 

Joel Lucas this year bought the Clothiers' works, dwelling house and 
the land on the south side of Lake street from the top of the hill to Lake 
street bridge, previously owned by Daniel Marshall, which he sold in 
1795. His name is on the tax lists of 1795 and 1796 ; and he lived in 
Sandisfield, Mass., in 1797. 

Zacheus Munsill, this year bought of Ananias Dearthick, the land 

in West Winsted on which stand the Second Congregational Church and 

other buildings. In 1798, he built and occupied the old house recently 

torn down on the north side of West Lake street, opposite the Stabells 

41 



322 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

brick house. He conveyed this property in 1801 to Preserved Crissey 
by a deed in which he is named "of Westmoreland, Oneida Couniy> 
N. Y." He married, December 10, 1796, Lovisa, daughter of Stephen 
Spencer. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Stephen, b. June 12, 1796. 
II. Lucy, b. Oct. 27, 1800. 

William A. Stone, " of Winchester," this year bought thirteen acres 
of land near the west end of the Everitt Holmes farm, which he conveyed 
away in 1795 by deed, in which he is named of Goshen. 

The names of Daniel Brown and Absalom Griffin are on the tax 
list of this year as residents of Winsted, and are not found elsewhere. 

Timothy Cannon's name is on the list of 1795. His wife Lucy was 
received into the Church in 1794 by letter from Southwick, Mass. They 
probably lived on South street. He died soon after 1800. They had 
children, Benjamin, Nathaniel, Elijah, and Tracy, who lived in Winsted 
after 1800. 

David Collins is on the list of this year as a resident. From 1797 
to 1799 he owned land on the east side of the road, north of David N. 
Beardsley, adjoining the Everitt Holmes farm. In 1799 he is named of 
Colebrook. 

Samuel Cummins, and his wife Margaret, from Torrington, this year 
bought the farm on Spencer street now owned by Edward Manchester, 
which they sold to Ensign Jonathan Coe in 1796, and then moved out of 
the town. 

Josiah Curtis, and his wife Emma, named of Sheffield, Mass., this 
year bought a house and land on the west side of South street, near Tor- 
rington line, which they conveyed to Ulysses Fyler in 1798. 

James Eggleston, and Jemima, his wife, this year bought a house 
and lot on the east side of the road, north of David N. Beardsley, which 
they sold in 171' 8, to Hine Clemmons, and left the town. 

Horace Higley, from Windsor, this year, jointly with Daniel Phelps, 
bought the Artcmas Rowley farm, south of the burying ground in the old 
society. In 1799, he bought of Isaac Wheeler, the tavern properly on 
Main street, south of Camp's Block, and all the land on Main street from 
M. & C. J. Camp's south line to the Clifton Mill Bridge, and including 
High, Elm, Center and Willow streets, most of which was then a forest, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 323 

without an inhabited tenement thereon. The tavern buildings were 
erected the year be'ore in anticipation of the opening of the Green 
Woods Turnpike, a new and shorter avenue of travel, which was to su- 
percede the Old North road, on the route from Hartford to Albany. Mr. 
Higley was a model farmer and tavern keeper of the old school. His 
lands were thoroughly cleared and skilfully tilled. No tippler ever 
haunted his bar-room. His table fare was suited to the taste of an epi- 
cure ; his beds were ever clean and well aired; and his guests found him 
a social, dignified, and gentlemanly host. The travel on the new road 
was so abundant that he could choose his guests ; and his choice of cus- 
tomers gave him an aristocratic reputation, which was by no means les- 
sened by a sight of the unchained lion on his sign-board, indicative of his 
strong federal propensities. He was a public-spirited and influential man 
in the community, largely employed in public business, — was Postmaster 
from 1806 to 1830, and six times a representative of the town in the 
General Assembly. In 1828, he retired from the tavern, and built and 
occupied the house on the flat, now owned by A. N. Beach. In 1838 he 
moved to Painesville, 0., where he died Jan. 5, 1842, aged 77. His wife 
d. at Painesville, Aug. 17. 1840, aged 82. He was son of Nathan and 
Anna (Barret) Higby, of Windsor, was b. East Windsor, 1765, and m. 
Eleanor Looniis. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Horace Loomis, b. Windsor, Dec. 29, 1794 ; lived at Pcnsacola and Mo- 
bile ; d. Mobile, Aug. 20, 1S56, leaving a family. 
II. Homer, b. "Winchester, Dec. 30, 1796; m. Amelia, dau. of Ra- 

phael Marshall, Tor. ; moved to Paiiicsvillc, O., in 1829, where he d. in 
1862. 

III. Peter, b. Feb. 10, 1802 ; d. Sept. 17, 1813. 

IV. Mary, b. May 18, 1801; d. in Painesville, O., Aug. 10, 1841 ; 

unmarried. 
V. Charles, b. Nov. 14, 1806; d. at Satartia, Miss., Aug. 19, 1835; 

unmarried. 

VI. William, b. April 3, 1S09; m. Sept., 1831, — Beach of San- 

disficld, Mass.; d. at Springfield, Mass., in 1863. 

Asher Loomis, a tanner and shoemaker, from Windsor, this year 
bought the Widow Hawley place on Dishmill Hill, immediately west of 
Daniel B. Wilson's, where he lived until about 1800, after which he lived 
on South street, near the Salmon Burr place, until about 1808, when he 
returned to Windsor. He m. in 17 ( JG, Rosinda, dau. of Deacon Shubael 
Cook, and had sons and daughters born in this town. One of his daugh- 
ters was second wife of Biley Smith, of Winsted. 

Setii Lucas, from Torrington, this year bought a farm now compos- 
ing part of the Gillett and Fosket farms, and lived in a house now torn 



324 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

down, on the discontinued road north of Gillett's. He sold out to Theo- 
dore Smith, in 1803, and removed to Colebrook. 

Truman Seymour, from Colebrook, a blacksmith, came from Cole- 
brook and resided in Winsted two years. — after which he lived in 
Colebrook, until 1807, when he returned to Winsted find lived in the 
pambrel-roofed house on Lake street, near the bridge, until 1815, when 
he removed to Oneida Co., N. Y. He was an ingenious mechanic, and 
much esteemed for his social qualities and obliging disposition. He had 
a large family of children, among them three sons, George, Chauncey, and 
Arab, and three daughters, Ann, Sophia, and Parnel. There were 
younger children, whose names are not I'emenibered. 

Amos Tollks, from Durham, Green Co., N. Y., owned the farm on 
Coe street, late owned by Anson Fosket, and built the house thereon, 
in which he lived until 1837, when he went to live with a son-in-law and 
daughter in Barkhamsted. He d. July 18, 1845, aged 80. His wife d. 
June 2, 1838, aged 64. He m. Marian Baldwin, b. Goshen, Conn., Nov. 
29, 1773, dau. of Bruin Baldwin. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Hannah, b. about 1793; m. Daniel Sage, of Colebrook. 

II. Elisha, b. about 1794; m. Harriet Frisbie; d. at Cincinnati, July 13, 
1849. 

III. Riley, b. 1796; d. at tbc South, unmarried. 

IV. Lucia, b. 1798; in. Amasa Mallory, Jr. ; d. Dec. 17, 1834. 
V. Sylvia, b. m. May, 1826, William S. Boyd. 

VI. Mary Ann, b. m. Amasa Mallory, Jr. 



CHILDREN OF ELISHA AND HARRIET (FRISBIE) TOLLES. 

I. Helen Maria, b. March, 1820; m. Augustus B. Clark, of New 

Britain. 
II. Robert Bruce. 

III. HiraM Frisbie. 

IV. Mary Aucusta, m. May 16, 1830, Elder Miles Grant. 
V. Harriet Frisbie. 



Eltsha Lewis, from Goshen, this year built a gambrel-roofed house, 
that stood on the site of Moses Camp's dwelling, on Main street, opposite 
Lake street bridge, in which, in company with Moses Lyman and Elihu 
Lewis, of Goshen, he kept a store until 1798, when he returned to 
Goshen. 

1796. 
Levi Barnes, from Torrington, owned a lot with a house and barn 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 325 

thereon, now owned by Jonathan Gilbert, on the east side of South street, 
until 1799, and continued to reside in the town until 1802. 

Jehiel Burr, from Torrington, lived first on the east tide of South 
street, below Jonathan Gilbert's, raid afterwards in a house on same street, 
next south of Whiting J. Miner's. He and Ids wile, Mabel, d. about 
1800. They had three sons, who resided in the town. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Erastus, m. Polly West; moved to Western N. Y., about 1812. 
II. Roswell, m. Nancy West ; moved to Ohio about 1830. 
III. Hulset, d. in Winsted, Jan. 25, 1861, aped 71. 

Eli Fox, probably from Chatham, this year bought the Roswell 
Pond lot on North Main street, and became a pauper, as appears by a 
vote of the town in 1802, directing a c uit to be brought against the town 
of Chatham for his support. 

Levi Fox is on the tax list of this year. In 1797 he bought the 
Halsey Burr place, and sold it the following year. In 1798, he bought 
the Roswell Pond place, above mentioned, and sold it in 1802. 

Doctor Aaron Moore is on the tax list of this year as a resident of _ 
Winsted. In 1802 he bought the Roswell Pond lot, and during his re- 
maining life resided in the house now torn down, about eight rods east of 
the road. He was a physician of some note in his day, being the only 
practitioner in the society until 1810, and the teacher of many doctors 
who have recently gone off the stage, among whom were Doctors Luman 
Wakefield, and T. S. Wetmore, of this town. lie died February 16, \ 
1813, aged 40, of putrid pleurisy, which prevailed at that period. The 
doctor of the beginning of this century was a more marked per.-onage 
than his successor of the present day. Doctor Moore, mounted on his 
Narraganset pacer, with his capacious saddle-bags crammed with physic 
enough to doctor a cavalry regiment, hordes and riders, projecting beyond 
and above the sides of the animal, making a safe seat for the rider, with 
stirrups so shortened as to bring his knees to a right angle, was a sight 
next in solemnity to that of his cotemporary, Parson Kinney, with his 
gaunt six-and-a-half-foot length of figure, surmounted with a cocked hat 
and white flowing wig. He married Polly Fyler, sister of Ulysses. She 
died May 26, 1807. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Cuixen, drowned in Georgia; unm. 

II. Erasmus Darwin, b. September 30, 1802; a clergyman. 

III. Osta (daughter), b. March 12, 1805 ; d. Nov. 30, 1806. 

IV. Jeremiah Markham, b. May 9, 1806; d. Nov. 16, 1806. 



326 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Gideon Hall came from Litchfield a young man, and had charge of a 
store near Wallen's Hill school-house, owned by Arthur Emmons. In 
1803 he bought the Moses M. Camp farm, on South street, and there re- 
sided until 1814, when he bought of Benjamin Wheeler the farm at the 
parting of South street from the Green Woods turnpike, which he occu- 
pied, with an interval of a few years of tavern keeping in the East Village 
hotel, until his death, February 23, 1850, aged 75. He was a shrewd, 
uncultivated man of indomitable energy, but without system or method 
in his business transactions. He was largely employed in public affairs, 
and in settling the estates of insolvent and deceased persons. As a select- 
man he managed the affairs of the town with economy, but could render 
no intelligible account of his doings. As sheriff's officer, in which capacity 
he acted for many years, his success was wonderful in escaping the conse- 
quences of his bungling mode of serving and returning legal process. 
As a politician, he could pull the strings and manage the wires of a can- 
vass with great adroitness. As a neighbor he was kind and useful in ways 
of his own. His religious profession was zealous and sincere, but spas- 
modic. He filled a large place in the doings of the community, worked 
hard during the day, and spent the night in serving writ?, canvassing 
votes, and attending political or religious meetings. He accumulated a 
handsome estate, and enjoyed the good will of the community. He mar- 
ried, in 1797, Polly, daughter of Samuel Hayden, Esq. She died March 
1G, 1830, aged 53. He married (2d), October 4, 1835, Lavinia, daughter 
of Daniel White, who survives him. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. Samuel Hayden, b. April 9, 1801 ; d. October, 1820. 
II. Abigail, b. Oct, 17, 1804; d. Sept. 12, 1823. 

III. Gideon, Jr., b. May 1, 1808, m. Lydia Foskctt; graduated at Litch- 

field Law School and admitted to the Litchfield county bar 1829. He 
practised law with success in Winstcd until 1SCG, when ho was appointed 
a Judge of the Superior Court, which office he held until his death, Dec. 
8, 18G7. He was representative of the town in 1838, 1S46, and 1854; a 
state senator in 1S47, and Judge of Probate from 1839 to 1841, and from 
1844 to 1848. 

IV. William SMirn, b. June 26, 1817; d. Feb., 1819. 

CHILD BY SECOND WIFE. 

V. Jane Oatiiakine, b. Oct. 20, 1843; m. May 9, 1871, Samuel A. Wctmore, 
of New Haven; had a son, b. Sept. 18, 1872. 

Natltan Kose, when a child, was brought away from Wyoming to 
Woodbury by his mother, after the British and Indian massacre, < f which 
his father was a victim. lie came from Woodbury to Winsted this year, 
married a daughter of William Davis, lived in a log house on Pratt street, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. , 327 

afterwards owned successively by Aaron Marshall, and Joseph Cook, until 
his removal to Bridgewater, Herkimer Co., N. Y., in 1798. 

Samuel Westlake, an iron refiner from Orange or Kockland Co., 
N. Y., came into the employ of Jenkins & Boyd this or the preceding 
year, and lived in a house long since torn down, which stood near Timothy 
Hulbert's office. He died October 13, 1818, aged 75. His wife died 
June 7, 1815, aged 64. 

CniLDREN. 

I. Sarah, b. March 31, 1770; m. Timpson. 

II. Mary,, b. Dec. 17, 1777; m. BJakcslcc. 

III. William, b. March IS, 1780. 

IV. Samuel, b. March 24, 1782. 

V. Abigail, b. Jan. 9, 1785 ; m. Andrew Walter. 

VI. John-, b. April 2G, 1787. 

VII. Thomas, b. Nov. 20, 1789. 

VIII. Nancy, b. March 12, 1792; m. Daniel Albro. 

Samdel Westlake, Jr., removed, soon after his first marriage, to 
Wolcottville, where he died. He married (1st) Clarissa, daughter of 
Christopher Whiting, by whom he had a daughter. 

William Westlake resided in one of the two houses recently removed 
from the Connecticut Western Railroad track to the bank of Mad River, 
near the pin factory, from 1809 to the time of his death on January 7, 
1848, and worked in the forge of James Boyd, opposite the Clark 
House. He married Laura Peet, of Sheffield, Mass. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, who d. younj;. VI. Laura Ann, m. Woodward. 

II. George, d. unmarried. VII. James. 

III. Fanny, m. Franklin Wolcott. VIII. Jane, m. Martin. 

IV. Mary, m. Wm. Barker. IX. Samdel, d. young. 

V. William. X. Louisa. 

JonN Westlake came into the town with his father and was esteemed 
the best iron refiner in the place. He first lived in a house adjoining his 
brother William's residence, near the pin factory, for several years. About 
1831 he bought the Philo G. Sheldon })lace on Main street, where he lived 
until his removal to Utica, N. Y., in 1841. Returning to Winsted in 1848, 
he soon after built the house at the east corner of High and Union streets, 
where he lived a few years, and then moved to the Old Society of Win- 
chester, when he died Nov. 9, 1 8G0, aged 74 years. lie was a kind- 
hearted man, of genial humor and unblemished character, respected and 



328 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

loved for his many virtues. He married, in 1809, Flora, daughter of 
Ebenezer Rowley, of W. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Rilet, who d. unmarried. III. Florania, m. Lcm'l Hurlbut, Jr. 

II. Julia, m. Edwin R. White. IV. Amanda, m. Thomas Senior. 

Thomas Westlake became a permanent resident of Winsted about 
1816. He first lived southward of the pin factory, and afterward, until 
his death, in the house of his son-in-law, Philo G. Sheldon, on Main 
street. He was an industrious, well-informed man, and good citizen. 

He married, in 18 1G, Sophia Goodwin of New Hartford. He died 
July 11, 1858, aged 68 years. She died June 11, 1864, aged 69. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Matilda, b. January 1, 1817; m. August 18, 1835, Philo G. Sheldon. 
II. Ruth, b. November 20, 1825 ; m. October 22, 1845, Upson Bunnell. 

III. Horace, b. February 9, 1828; m. at Hillsdale, N. Y., in April, 1851, 

Henrietta Foster. He was licensed as a physician in 1850, and has since 
practised at Hillsdale to the present time. 

Randall Shatttjck "of Middletown," owned a dish mill near 
Meadow street bridge, on the lake stream, from 1797 to' 1803. He is 
said to have lived in a log house on the site of the Beardsley House. 
He removed to Torrington in 1803, and had a son, Randall Shattuck, 
Jr., who is now living. 

Oliver White is on the tax list of Winsted for 1796 and 1797, 
and lived in the Lazarus Palmer house, near the Wallen's Hill school- 
house, whence he moved over the line into Barkhamsted, and thence to 
Dyberry, Wayne Co., Penn., where he died about 1855, aged 82. He 
married Lucy Wood. 

children. 

I. Oliver, b. November 12, 1796. 
II. Ralph, b. 1803 ; d. December 27, 1809. 

III. Daniel. 

IV. Lucy, m. Halsey Burr. 
V. Charlotte. 

VI. Maria, m. November 25, 1838,Alonzo R. Bishop. 
VII. RiettaJ m. March 8, 1S37, William Weaver. 
VIII. Eliza, m. Jonas Stanton. 

Oliver White, Jr., as early as 1825 began to manufacture farming 
implement*, between the Clock Factory and the Cook Axle Factory, 
on the road east of Still River, where he still resides. He married, 
July 6, 1817, Pamelia Bacon of Barkhamsted. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 329 



CHILDREN. 

I. James, b. April 9, 1818; m. Charlotte Greene. 

II. Loman, b. July 19, 1819; m. Sarepta Reynolds. 

III. Orrin Washington, b. April 5, 1821 ; a clergyman. 

IV. Wilson B., b. January 24, 1823; m. Harriet Leach. 

V. George, b. June 4, 1825; representative in 1861; m. Ellen 

M. Kelsey ; she d. December 24, 1864, and he m. (2d) Mrs. Emily M. 
Putnam. 
VI. Julia A., b. May 29, 1827 ; m. Charles H. Wattles. 

VII. Aurelia A., b. July 18, 1830; m. Grove Stannard. 

VIII. Susan P., b. May 11, 1832; m. Hiram J. Norton. 



1796. 

Asahel Miller from Torrington, owned and lived from 1797 to 
about 1810 on the farm lately owned by Anson Fosket, on the old hill 
road to Colebrook, in a house that stood nearly opposite that of D. N. 
Beardsley. About 1811, he built the house on the easterly side of 
Main street, next above the Dudley Tannery, and in company with 
James Shepard built the original tannery at that point. In 1815 he sold 
out to Abiel Loomis, and removed to Tyringham, Mass. He was a 
carpenter ; an intelligent, industrious man, and much respected. He was 
born at Torrington, October 24, 1760, son of George and Sarah Miller. 
Married, October 26, 1788, Lovina, daughter of Ensign Jonathan Coe of 
Winchester. They died in Erie, Penn. 

children. 

I. Joel, b. Tor., June 26, 1790. V. Willard. 

II. Lucia, m. Silas Burton. VI. Kirhy. 

III. Laura, m. John W. Sweet. VII. Sarah. 

IV. Arvin. 

Joel Miller, oldest son of Asahel, an ingenious mechanic and 
deeply religious man, married ;i daughter of Grove Pinney of Colebrook, 
and resided in Winsted, dying childless before middle life. 

Timothy and William Soper, father and son, from Windsor, lived 
from 1797 to 1800, on the Roswell Smith farm, on Wallen's Hill, and 
returned to Windsor. 

Daniel Wilcox from Berlin, this year bought the clothier's shop 

and fulling mill on Lake street, and lived in the " Old Factory house," 

at the easterly corner of Lake and Rockwell streets, until 1813, when he 

sold out to S. Rockwell & Brothers, and removed to Great Barrington, 

42 



330 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Mass. He was a man of iron constitution, energetic, social and hos- 
pitable. He married, September 7, 1707, Mebitabel Wright. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Patty, b. August 31, 1799 ; m. — Beckwith of Great Barringtoh. 

II. Maurice, b. May 15, 1801. 

III. Mekcy, b. June 29, 1803. 

IV. Emily, b. December 11, 1805. 
V. Juliette, b. April 30, 1808. 

Frederick Eggleston from Colebrook is on the list of this year. 
In 1799 he bought the house that stood on the site of George Dudley's 
dwelling on Main street, which he sold in 1801 to David West, and then 
returned to Colebrook. He again lived in Winsted from 1810 to 1814, 
working for S. & M. Rockwell as a blacksmith, after which he returned 
to Colebrook. 

Samuel and Moses Camp, sons of Moses Camp of Norfolk, and 
grandsons of Abraham Camp of New Milford, this year bought the 
Florin Parsons farm, near the Wallen's Hill schoolhouse, where they 
carried on the hatter's trade until 1S04, when they bought the Stephen 
Knowlton farm on south street, next south of the Ebenezer Rowley 
farm, and lived in a house, now torn down, on the east side of the 
road. 

Samuel Camp continued his residence here until his removal in 1824, 
to the farm now owned by Hiram Burn ham, in Barkhamsted, where he 
died May 10, 1850, aged 77, a pious and highly respected man. He 
was born in Norfolk, March 4, 1773 ; married July 10, 1799, Mercy 
Sheldon of New Marlboro, Mass. She died August 21, 1854. • 

CHILDREN. 

I. Samuel Sheldon, b. December 13, 1800; m. Elizabeth, daughter of 

Amasa Mallory. 
II. Moses, b. October 5, 1803; m. Miranda Goodwin of Goshen. She died 
April 7, 1865, aged 57 years, s. p. He m. (2d) February 12, 1867, 
Amelia S. Humphrey of Guilford, N. Y. He has been town clerk, 
representative in general assembly, and president of the Winsted 
Savings Bank. 
III. Electa, b. November 27, 1806; m. April 28, 1831, George Dudley, b. 
Bloomfieid, September 17, 1803, son of Levi and Abigail (Hitchcock) 
Dudley. He was a manufacturer of bookbinders' leather; president of 
the Winsted Bank for many years ; postmaster, state senator, and 
presidential elector, at General Grant's election. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Jane Mehitabel, b. June 28, 1833 ; d. October 6, 1851. 
■1. Emily Sheldon, b. July 17, 1838. 
3. Mary Beach, b. May 21, 1840. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 331 

4. Alice Mercy, b. April 6, 1842; m. June 11, 1868, Theodore 

F. Vaill, editor of The Winsted Herald, and Adjutant of the 
Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery. 

5. George, b. July 1, 1844. 

IV. Edward, b. April 25, 1809; m. September 29, 1831, Maria Norton, daugh- 
ter of Deacon Lewis M. Norton of Goshen ; she d. October 6, 1848, and 
he ra. (2d) December 18, 1850, Desiah Knapp, daughter of Bushnell 
Knapp of Norfolk; she d. November 29, 1856, s. p., and he m. (3d) 
January 20, 1858, Louisa A. Williams of Natick, R. I. He represented 
tin' town of Barkhamsted in 1848 ; has been selectman of Winchester, 
and burgess of the Borough of Winsted; has one child, Frances Maria, 
b. July 28, 1844. 
V. Beulah, b. June 20, 1811 ; m. September 29, 1845, George Kellogg. 
VI. Mehitabkl, b. May 9, 1813; m. October 22, 1840, George Kellogg; she 
died at Columbus, O., June 13, 1842. 
VII. Caleb Jackson, b. June 12, 1815; m. May 22, 1839, Mary, daughter 
of Rev. James Beach; was associated with his brothers, though, being a 
minor, his name did not appear in the mercantile firm of M. & E. Camp, 
organized March 1, 1835; in the firm of M. & C. J. Camp, which suc- 
ceeded it, March 1, 1839, and that of M. &. C. J. Camp and Co., formed 
March 1, 1854, he has long been the principal manager. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Mary Mehitabel, b. March 4, 1842; m. October 23, 1866, Her- 

man E. Curtis of N. Y. ; settled in Winona, Minnesota, where 
her son, Clinton James, was born August 21, 1870. 

2. Augusta, b. April 3, 1845; m. October 17, 1871, Franklin A. 

Rising of N. Y. 

3. James Beach, b. October 15, 1846 ; d. November 13, 1849. 

4. Anna Beach, b. August 2, 1850; d. March 24, 1852. 

5. Ellen Baldwin, b. August 16, 1855. 



Moses Camp, Sr., in 1814, bought the farm on the South street, now 
owned and occupied by his son, Moses M. Camp, where he died March 
6, 1852, aged 78. He was a man of strong mind and decided principles, 
highly esteemed and respected. He married Deidamia Knowlton, daugh- 
ter of Stephen. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, the able and efficient manager of the Winsted Manufacturing Com- 
pany from May, 1835, till his death Aug. 16, 1862, aged 56 years. He 
was Representative, Selectman, and Judge of Probate. Hem. Ursula 
Whiting, who d. s. p. : .and he m. (2d), Julia Root; had 

CHILDREN. 

1. Julia, d. 4. Alice. 

2. Electa, d. Jan. 16, 1866, aged 17. 5. Lewis L. 

3. John K. 6. William. 
II. Harriet, m. Henry Dutton of New Hartford. 

III. Mary, m. Sept. 4,-1833, Elijah B. White. 

IV. Adeline, m. James J. Preston. 



332 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

V. Goodloe H., m. Tuttle. 

VI. Moses M., m. Worthington. 

VII. Emeline, m. Lewis E. Loomis. 

VIII. George G., m. Sept. 19, 1850, Sarah A. Hart. 



Aaron Marshall, from Torrington, this year bought a farm, with a 
log house thereon, on the east side of Pratt street, three quarters of a 
mile south of the depot. He died Sept. 7, 1807, aged 74, leaving two in- 
competent daughters, Chloe and Asenath, both of them now deceased and 
unmarried. 

Daniel White is on the tax list of this year as a resident. He after- 
ward lived for many years over the Barkhamstead line on Wallen's hill, 
where he raised a family of children. In his latter years, he resided with 
his daughter, Mrs. Hall, where he died Dec. 28, 1859, aged 85. His 
wife, Clarissa (Cleveland), died June 12, 1822, aged 40. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Emily, b. Feb. 9, 1801 ; m. Hezekiah G. Butler. 

II. Lavinia, b. Aug. 20, 1803 ; m. Gideon Hall of Winsted. 

III. Mary Cleveland, b. Jan. 31, 1805 ; m. Edward A. Hugg. 

IV. Harriet, b. Jan. 28, 1807 ; m. Oren Kellogg. 

V. Horace Cleveland, b. Feb. 22, 1809; m. Susan A. Wolcott. 
VI. Urania Clarissa, b. July 20, 1811; d. near Lake Superior, Aug. 5, 
1839. 
VII. Philenda Miller, b. June 11, 1814; m. Elizur G. Perry. 
VIII. Jennett, b. April 6, 1816 ; d. July 26, 1816. 

IX. Pembroke, b. Sept. 18, 1819; went to Iowa. See Allyn S. Kel- 

logg's White Memorials, p. 179. 



1798. 

Merritt Bull, came from Harwinton to Winsted and served his ap- 
prenticeship as a scythe maker. He is first on the tax list as an inhabi- 
tant this year. He first lived in the house on Spencer street, now owned 
by Sarah Loomis, and carried on blacksmithing in a shop that then stood 
on the house lot of Samuel W. Coe. In 1802 or 1803, he built a scythe 
hop where the stone shop of the Winsted Hoe Company now stands, on 
Meadow street, which he carried on until his death. In 1809 he bought, 
and thereafter occupied, the gambrel-roofed house which stood on the site 
of Moses Camp's dwelling, opposite Lake street. He was instantly killed 
by falling among the gears of his grinding works, May 28, 1824, at the 
age of 49. He was an amiable and industrious man, who failed of success 
in business by attempting more than he could accomplish. He repre- 



AND FAMILY RECOKDS. 333 

«pnted the town in the General Assembly of 1827. He married, Nov. 
26, .SOI, Hannah, daughter of Aaron Cook, of Winchester; born Jan- 
uary 20, 1775. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Eliza Miriam, b. Sept. 20, 1802. 

II. Nelson, b. Feb. 6, 1804 ; d. April 17, 1817. 

III. Sidney, b. " 18, 1806. 

IV. Trumbull, b. Dec. 2, 1807. 
V. Henry Bogue, b. Feb. 2, 1810. 

VI. Wolcott, b. Nov. 2, 1812 ; d. May 7, 1815. 

VII. Delia, b. May 29, 1815. 

Cyrus Butrick, a blacksmith, is on the tax list of this year as a 
resident of Winsted. In 1801 he bought the house that stood where 
Lake street now runs, at the turning of the hill a little east of the works 
of the Henry Spring Company, and worked in a shop that stood on the 
west side of Lake street, opposite the old mill house. In 1803 he re- 
moved to the old hill road to Colebrook, above the D. N. Beardsley 
place. He left the town about 1805. He married, Oct. 18, 1798, 
Phebe, daughter of Rev. John Sweet. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Polly, b. Dec. 16, 1799. II. Phebe, 15. Feb. 21, 1802. 

Joseph Cook, son of Aaron and Lydia, and a native of the town, is 
on the list of this year as a resident of the Old Society. In 1809 he 
bought the Aaron Marshall place, on the Pratt road, where he afterward 
dwelt until his death Oct. 11, 1814, aged 39. He left a son and two 
daughters. One of the latter is wife of Allen Roberts, of this town. He 
married, July — , 1803, Amelia Davis, who, after his death, married Syl- 
vester Roberts. 

Jonathan Douglass, brother of Israel, owned from 1798 to 1801, a 
part of the Kinney farm, on Spencer street road, and lived on the west 
side of the road, not far from Amos Pierce's residence. 

Capt. George Frasier, a Scotchman, is on the tax list of this year 
as a resident of Winsted. He was a trader near the Wallen's Hill 
school-house for a few years, and probably for the most part resided over 
the line in Barkhamsted. 

Levi Norton, 2d, from Norfolk, lived in the northernmost of the two 
contiguous houses recently owned by Halsey Burr, deceased, on the west 
side of the old Still River turnpike until after 1817. In 1822, he is 



334 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

named "of Hartland," in a deed on record. His wife was Rhoda, 
daughter of Enoch Palmer ; the land records give the names of five of 
their children, viz : 

CHILDREN. 

Eden, of Benson, Vt., in 1822. Fanny, wife of Asa Mallory. 

Isaac A., of Cornwall, in 1821. Jemima, 

Solomon. 

Elihu Rockwell, youngest son of Joseph, and descended in the fifth 
generation from Deacon William Rockwell, a first planter of Dorchester, 
Mass., and Windsor, Conn., came this year from Torrington to Winsted, 
and purchased from his father-in-law, John Allen, the farm on Spencer 
street recently successively owned by Nisus Kinney and Luther G. Hins- 
dale. He lived on this farm until his removal to Euclid, Cuyahoga Co., 
Ohio, in 1825. He was a man of marked character and influence, enter- 
taining political and religious sentiments not in harmony with those of his 
Puritan ancestors. No record is found of his family. His daughter, 
Lydia, by his first wife, married Clarke H. Roberts, late of Colebrook, 
deceased. He also had by his second wife a son and daughter who re- 
moved with him to Ohio. 

Reuben Rowley, oldest son of Ebenezer, and a native of the town, is 
on the list of this year. In 1801 he became owner of the portion of the 
East Village bordered by the Holabird property on the north, Still river 
east, Main street south, and Oak street west, which he exchanged in 1802 
for a farm in the northeast corner of the town, recently owned by Joel 
Mead, now deceased, on which he lived until his removal to Hitchcockville 
in 1847, where he died May 2, 1851, aged 74. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Orpha, m., Oct. 23, 1823, Isaac Brown ; she d. Sept. 26, 1827, aged 23. 
II. Sophronia, m., Aug. 29, 1832, Allen Bacon; she d. about 1855. 
III. Gad. 

Joel Wright lived on the road to Colebrook above David N. Beards- 
ley's until his death, March 16, 1813. He was a hard-working, faithful 
man, much employed as a farm laborer and teamster. His wife died Feb- 
ruary 21, 1813, aged 40. They had children, Sally, Joel, Flora, and 
Artemas. Flora married, February 7, 1821, Alexander Baldwin. 

Joseph Holmes, brother of David, named in 1786, while living in 
Torrington, owned land in this society as early as 1796, but his name first 
appears on the li^t as a resident in 1798. He owned and occupied the 
farm on the Spencer street road, near Colebrook line, afterward occupied 
by his son Willard, and now by Everett E. Holmes, son of Willard. He 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 335 

represented the town in six sessions of the Assembly between 1807 and 
1815, and was in all respects an exemplary man and citizen. He died 
September 1, 1826, aged 68. His wife died October 31, 1820, aged 68. 
He married, at Torrington, Conn., Sept. 9, 1788, Lydia Curtis, born in 
Torringtou, Dec. 29, 1751. 

CHILDREN. 

I. David, b. April 27, 1779 ; d. at the age of 9 years. 

II. Rufus, b. April 29, 1781. 

III. Jerusha, b. April 25, 1783 ; m. Jan. 27, 1807, Henry Bass, of Colebrook. 

IV. Roxana, b. Sept. 21, 1785; in. David Collins, Blanford, Mass. 
V. Phebe, b. 1787; m. Daniel Deming, Colebrook. 

VI. Polly, b. d. aged 2£ years. 

VII. Willard, b. Nov. 14, 1792. 

Rufus Holmes, second son of Joseph, lived after his first marriage in 
Colebrook, adjoining Winchester line, until 1850, when he bought of 
Henry E. Rockwell the Seminary building near High street in Winsted, 
in which he and his son, Lucius L., afterwards resided until their death. 
He was a thrifty farmer, an upright, public-spirited, and highly respected 
man, and a sincere Christian. He married (1st), Esther Eno, of Cole- 
brook. She died August 18, 1831. He married (2d), July 1, 1835, Be- 
linda, daughter of Nathan Bass, of Colebrook. He died Juue 26, 1855, 
aged 74 years. She died October 6, 1855, aged 60. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 
I. Lucius Lorenzo, b. Colebrook, Nov. 7, 1811 ; in., March 20, 1833, Mary 
A. Gaylord, b. Nov. 7, 1810. He d. at Winsted May 14, 1854. She d. 
at Winsted Nov. 26, 1854. 
II. Susan Jennett, b. Colebrook, Dec. 6, 1816 ; in. Rollin S. Bcecher. 

CHILD BY SECOND WIFE. 

III. Rufus (Edward), b. Colebrook, May 4, 1857. He m., Dec. 24, 1857, Lucy, 
daughter of Nelson D. Coe, b. Winchester, Nov. 18, 1834. He was cashier 
of the Hurlbut bank from June 3, 1857, to Dec. 7, 1863; cashier of the 
Winsted bank from Dec. 7, 1863 to Aug. 27, 1864; and president of the 
Hurlbut bank from the last date to the present time. Children: 1. Anna 
Louisa, b. Sept. 17, 1860; 2. Susan Beeeher, b. Oct. 27, 1862; 3. Rufus, 
b. April 4, 1865, d. March 16, 1866 ; 4. Edward Rufus, b. March 7, 1867; 
5. Ralph Winthrop, b. Oct. 6, 1869. 



CHILDREN OF LUCIUS L. AND MARY G. HOLMES. 

I. Aii infant b. Jan., 1834 ; d. Eeb., 1854. 

II. Susan Jane, b. Colebrook, March 26, 1835; m. Dec. 10, 1854, Edward 
Clarke, b. Winsted. 

III. Lucius Lorenzo, b. April 12, 1840; m., Dec. 25, 1861. 

IV. Charles Beecuer, b. Jan. 25, 1846 ; m. Abby, daughter of Amos Pierce. 



336 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Willard Holmes, youngest child of Joseph and Lydia (Curtis) 
Holmes, resided from birth to death in his father's homestead. On the 
night of Feb. 22, 1857, he was awakened by finding his house in flames. 
He and his wife, the sole occcupants, having escaped to the open air, he 
re-entered the burning building to secure his papers and valuables, when 
suffocation ensued, and he was burned in the ruins. He was a well- 
educated, thoughtful man, of strong convictions and independent actions ; 
a friend of the slave, the opponent of every wrong, and a humble Christian. 
He married at Norfolk, Oct., 1819, Miranda, daughter of David and Mary 
(Everett) Frisbie. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Luther Willard, b. Sept., 1820; m. 

II. Everett Curtis, b. April 28, 1821 ; m., Nov. 1, 1848, Laura Pease, b. 

April 22, 1824. 

III. Lydia, b. 1823 ; d. August, 1833. 

IV. Mary Melissa, b. 

CHILDREN OF EVERETT C. AND LAURA (PEASE) HOLMES. 

I. Edward E., b. Dec. 27, 1849. 

II. Elizabeth S., b. Sept. 1, 1852, adopted Nov. 1, 1854. 

III. Willard P., b. Aug. 22, 1857. . 

IV. Lumas H., b. Nov. 4, 1864. 
V. Mary Isabel, b. July 25, 1867. 



1799. 

Isaac and Mary Bellows owned land on the Colebrook road, and 
lived above D. N. Beardsley's. They sold out in 1800, — and after wards 
lived until 1814, on Colebrook line on the site of the house recently 
built by Birdsey Gibbs. 

Roswell Marshall, from Torrington, this year lived in the De- 
Wolf house on the west side of Colebrook road, adjoining Colebrook 
line, above the house of W. E. Cowles. He removed, in 1800, to his 
adjoining farm in Colebrook. 

Charles Osborn is on the Winsted list of this year, and owned land 
west of the D. N. Beardsley road, near Colebrook line. Charles and 
William owned land on east side of Green Woods Turnpike, opposite 
the Uri Church bridge, from 1801 to 1805, and probably occupied the 
house thereon, which has been recently torn down. 

Nathaniel Parks, probably from Bristol, this year lived in a " pest 
house " that stood on East Lake street, near the great spring. He after- 
wards owned and lived on land on the Still River Turnpike, south of 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 337 

Roswell Pond's, which he conveyed to the town of Bristol in 1801. lie 
was a miller, and had charge of the Doolittle Mill, opposite the Clock 
Factory. His wife was a woman of weight, who pressed her cheese by 
sitting on the driver of the hoop while knitting her stockings, thereby 
dispensing with a cheese press. Their son, Jonathan, became a showman 
of pictures, through a magnifying glass; — and when moving from house 
to house, with his show box on his back, appeared as majestic as a cas- 
tellated elephant. His drawling, snuffling, yankee twang, in describing 
his pictorial views, was inimitably and irresistibly ludicrous. He outgrew 
his maternal fatness, and became a Daniel Lambert. While on a visit 
hereabout 1812, his pants were surreptitiously obtained from a tailor, 
with whom he had left them to be mended ; and three lull grown men 
invested themselves within their ample folds, adjusting their right and 
left legs in the corresponding legs of the garment — -and after some prac- 
tice in the lock step, were able to march around the ca-t village green, to 
the great entertainment of the public. The fit of the garment, however, 
to the triple nondescript, was not perfect, — there being room within the 
girth for another legless body. 

Jonathan was self-important, and affected sanctimony. He gave up 
the show business, and took to distributing tracts and begging for ginger- 
bread and other sweet food, — was advertised as an impostor, and died in 
a poor house. Byron may have had his epitaph in view when he wrote, 

" 'Tis Greece, but living' Greece no more." 

Theodore Smith, from Goshen, first lived on Brooks street, in the 
Danbury quarter, south of, and adjoining the Asaph Brooks farm. In 
1803, he removed to Winsted, and lived until 1815, in the house now 
torn down on the discontinued part of the old Colebrook road, between 
Junius Gillett, and Anson Fosket's. He removed thence to Tolland, 
Mass. He was son of Chileab, of Goshen, and half-brother of Capt. 
Zebina, of Winsted. His wife's name was Rhoda. They had sons, 
Erastus, late of Colebrook; Riley, who d. June 4, 18G5, in Winsted, on 
the Old Country road, w r est of Daniel B. Wilson's, leaving two sons, who 
live at Riverton. Roswell living on Wallen's Hill, and Lorrain living 
over the line in Barkhamsted. 

Henry Sanford, from Barkhamsted, lived first on South street, and 
after 1801, in a log house on Hinsdale street, on land lately owned by 
Nathan Champion. He left the town about 1805. His son, William 
Sanford, kept the Tavern and Livery Stable, south of Camp's Block, for 
several years before his death, which occurred Jan. 20, 1859, at the age 
of 53 years. He m. (1st) Sophronia, dan. of Stephen Fyler, who d. May 
7, 1832, aged 32 ; (2d), Harriet Wade, now living. By first wife he 
43 



338 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

had daughter, Jane, now wife of George M. Wentworth. By second 
wife, he had a son, William. 

1800. 

The new comers of this year were Bissell Hinsdale, Philemon Kirk- 
ham, Josiah Apley, Elijah Benedict, Nathaniel Smith, Solomon Lemley, 
Jacob Lemley, William Davis, and Gedeliah Chase. 

Bissell Hinsdale, a native of Windsor, began mercantile business 
on the old North Country road in Colebrook, near the Rowley Pond, 
whence he this year removed to Winsted, and built the store which 
was removed about 1848, to make room for the brick block, at the corner of 
Main and Lake streets. Here he carried on a large and for many years 
a prosperous business, — selling goods, buying and slaughtering cattle for 
the West India trade, making potash and buying cheese for the New 
York and Southern markets. He bought the gambrel-roofed house, 
built by Mr. Kirkham on the site of Weed's brick block, where he lived 
until 1814, when he built and occupied the house removed by Doctor 
Welch from the ground now occupied by the Second Congregational 
Church. In 182G he became involved in the failure of his brothers, J. 
& D. Hinsdale, of Middlctown, on whose paper he was indorser to a 
large amount, and thereby his business was broken up, and his property 
swept away. He continued to reside in Winsted until about 1842, when, 
after the death of his son, Theodore Hinsdale, he removed to Rochester, 
N. Y., where his two daughters resided, and where he carried on a com- 
mission business for several years. He died at Rochester, in February, 
1866, aged ninety-one years, and his remains were buried in Winsted. 
Mr. Hinsdale was a thoroughly trained merchant of the old school, — 
large of frame, dignified and reserved in manner — diligent in business, 
a stern but indulgent parent, a firm supporter of good order and good 
morals. He made a profession of religion at middle age, which he sus- 
tained by a consistent life, and verified by a steady growth in Christian 
graces to the close of life. He was liberal in the support of education 
and religion, kind to the poor, and firm for the right. If there were 
those who considered him overbearing in his prosperous days, their hos- 
tility was disarmed by his patience in adversity, his cheerful acquiescence 
in his altered circumstances, and his blameless life. For many years 
after removing to Rochester he annually visited his family friends in 
Winsted, and Avas greeted with reverent regard by all who had known 
him in his earlier years. The infirmities of age abated not his loving 
trust in his Saviour. He was gathered to his fathers as a shock of corn 
fully ripe. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 339 

The following line of families shows his descent from an early settler 
of New England : — 

Robert Hinsdale 1 was one of the founders of the church at Ded- 
ham, Mass., November 8, 1G38, freeman of Mass., March 13, 1639; 
member of the Artillery Company, 1645; had wife Ann; removed to 
Medfield, Mass., where he aided in forming the church ; thence, as early 
as 1G72, to Hadley, Mass., where he lived several years, and married 
(2d) Elizabeth, widow of John Hawks ; removed to Deerfield, Mass., 
where he was gathering his harvest in the cornfield, and was killed, with 
his sons, Barnabas, John, and Samuel, when Captain Lathrop, with the 
flower of Essex, fell at Bloody Brook, surprised by the Indians, Sept. 18, 
1675. His widow married (3d) Thomas Dibble. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, 2 m. July 7, 1657, James Rising of Boston. 
II. Barnabas, 2 b. November 13, 1039; bap. November 17, 1639. 

III. Samuel, 2 birth record not found ; m. Mehitabel Johnson, and had six 

children before he was killed by the Indians. 

IV. Gamaliel 2 , (supposed by Savage to be a mistake for Samuel), b. March 5, 

1042; bap. March 13, 1042. 
V. Mart, 2 b. February 14, 1044; bap. February 25, 1644. 

VI. Experience, 2 b. January 23, 1046; bap. February 8, 1046. 
VII. John, 2 b. January 27, 1648; bap. April 16, 1648. 

VIII. Epiikaim, 2 b. September 26, 1650 ; bap. October 27, 1650. 

Barnabas Hinsdale, 2 of Hatfield, Ma^s., married October 15, 1666,' 
Sarah (White) Taylor, daughter of John and Mary White, and widow 
of Stephen Taylor. He was slain by the Indians, September 18, 1675. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Barnabas, 3 b. Hatfield, February 20, 1G68. 
II. Sarah, 3 b. — ; m. January 8, 1691, Deacon Samuel Hall of East 

Miildlctown, now Chatham. Conn. 

III. Elizabeth, 3 b. October 29, 1671 ; d. March 8, 1672. 

IV. Isaac, 3 b. September 15, 1673. 
V. Mary, 3 b. March 27, 1677. 

Barnabas Hinsdale" was admitted an inhabitant of Hartford, Conn., 
in 1693, and died there January 25, 1725, aged 57. He married, 
November 9, 1693, Martha Smith of Hartford, who died December — , 
1738, aged 68. 

children. 

I. Balnabas, 4 b. August 28, 1694 ; settled in Tolland, Conn. 
II. Martha, 4 b. February 17, 1696; m. November 9, 1736, Thomas Bull 
of Harwinton, Conn., and d. April 15, 1761. 
III. Jacob, 4 b. July 14, 1698. 



340 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

IV. Sarah, 4 b. July 22, 1700; m. Nathaniel White [see "White Memo- 

rials," pp. 32-3, and 49]. 
V. Elizabeth, 4 b. January 9, 1702; m. April 4, 1728, Jacob Benton of 

Hanvinton. 
VI. Mary, 4 b. July 13, 1704 ; m. March 30, 1738, James Skinner, Jr. 

VII. John, 4 b. August 13, 1706. 

VIII. Daniel, 4 b. May 15, 1708; m. August 21, 1737, Catharine Curtis of 

Wethersficld, who was buried April 12, 1788, aged G8. ne was a 
deacon ; lived in Hartford ; buried September 13, 1781, aged 73. 
IX. Amos, 4 b. August 24, 1710; m. Experience — , who d. May 4, 

1781, aged 61. 

Captain John Hinsdale 4 married, November 8, 1733, Elizabeth 
Cole, born March 18, 1711 ; she died July 1, 1784, aged 73. He lived 
in Kensington, now Berlin, Conn., and died December 2, 1792, aged 86. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, 5 b. August 19, 1734; d. October 13, 1743. 

II. Elizabeth, 5 b. June 29, 173G; in. David Atkins of Middletown. 

III. Theodore, 5 b. November 25, 1738. 

IV. Lucy, 5 b. July 1G, 1741; m. Samuel Plumb of Middletown; d. Feb. 

— , 1791. 
V. Elijah, 5 b. April 1, 1744; m. Ruth Bidwell ; had a daughter Eliza- 

beth, who was the mother of Elijah Hinsdale Burritt, the astronomer, 
and of Elihu Burritt, "the learned blacksmith." 
VI. Lydia, 5 b. August 11, 1747; m. Samuel Hart of Berlin, and was the 

mother of Mrs. Emma Willard, and of Mrs. Almira-Lincoln Phelps, 
each of them widely known as an instructress and authoress. 
VII. John, 5 b. August 21, 1749. 

Theodore Hinsdale"' graduated Yale College, 1762 ; was ordained 
pastor of the church at North Windsor, April 30, 1766 ; married July 
14, 1768, Anna Bissell, born March 11, 1748. They removed to Hins- 
dale, Mass., which town was named in his honor, where she died, March 
14, 1817, in her 69th year. He died December 29, 1818, aged 80 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Anne (Nancy) , b. April 16, 17G9; d. Troy, N. Y., May 16, 1851. 

II. Lucy, b. December 31, 1770; d March 21, 1792. 

III. Theodore, 6 b. November 12, 1772; d. October 14, 1855. 

IV. Josiaii Bissell, b. November 15, 1774; he discarded the first name 

" Josia'.i," and was always known as Bissell. 
V. James, 6 b. September 28, 177G; d. September 28, 1777. 

VI. John, 6 b. November 10, 1778; d. Brooklyn, N. Y., March 13, 

1S5G. 
VII. Levi, 6 b. November 29', 1780 ; d. February 19, 1830. 

VIII. Altamika, b. November 8, 17S2; m. — Emmons; she d. at 

Princeton, N. J., November 11, 183G. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 341 

IX. Daniel, 6 b. March 22, 1785; d. at Rising Sun, la., May 4, 
1837. 

X. Horatio, b. November;!, 1787 ; d. April 9, 1813. 

XI. William, 6 b. March 5, 1790. 

John Hinsdale 5 married Philomela Hurlbut, daughter of Dr. James 
Harvey, and — (Hart) Hurlbut. She died in 1790, aged 3G years. 
He died at Berlin, Conn., December 9, 1795. 

CHILDREN. 

I. IIosea, 6 b. Berlin, Conn., February 15, 1775. [Sec 1S02.] 

II. Abigail, b. — ; m. Wm. Benham ; settled in West Hartford. 

III. EsTiiEit, 6 b. — ; m. Amos Hills of Farmington ; d. at Cabot, Vt. 

IV. Amelia, b. — ; m. Anson Cook; had five children. 

V. Nancy, b. — ; m. Norman Spencer'; lived iu Winchester, and in 
Ypsilanti, Mich.; had seven children. 

Bissell Hinsdale married Temperance Pitkin, born May 3, 1772, 
daughter of Rev. Timothy and Temperance (Clap) Pitkin. She died 
August 13, LSI 7. He died at Rochester, N. Y., February G, 18GG. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Theodore, 7 b. Colebrook, Conn., December 27, 1800. 

II. Ann, 7 b. W., Oct. 16,1802; m. September 12, 1825, Fred. 

Whittlesey of Rochest' t. 

III. Mary Pitkin, 7 b. January 10, 180G ; m. September 21, 1829, Selah 

Matthews of Rochester. 

IV. Timothy Pitkin, 7 b. May 5, 1S09; d. February 5, 1810. 
V. Chaules, 7 b. May 23, 1812 ; d. March 1, 1814. 



Theodore Hinsdale, Esq., son of Bissell, graduated at Yale College 
in 1821, read law for a brief period with Seth P. Staples, Esq., of New 
Haven, and afterwards studied at Andover for one or two years ; and in 
1S27 went into manufacturing business with his father-in-law, in the firm 
name of Rockwell & Hinsdale successors of the Rockwell Brothers, who 
for nearly fifty years had conducted the same business. After the death 
of Mr. Rockwell in 1837, he was associated in the same business with the 
late Elliot Beardsley, deceased, in the linn name of Hinsdale & BeaixLIey 
until his death. 

As a business man, he manifested groat energy and executive ability ; 
while as a citizen he was prominent and influential in advocating 
every good cause, and leading others by his activity and ardor. Gifted 
with a commanding person, a fascinating manner, and a native oratory, 
he became widely known and admired, and was sought as presiding 
officer or prominent speaker in the largest public gatherings in the coun- 
ty and State. 



342 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

In the meridian of his manhood, with a career of distinguished useful- 
ness and honor in prospect, he was struck down by typhoid fever, and 
died Nov. 27, 1841, in the fortieth year of his age. 

He married, April 26, 1826, Jerusha Rockwell, born March 28, 1803, 
daughter of Solomon and Sarah (McEwen) Rockwell. After his death 
she married (2d), Dec. 10, 1843, John Boyd. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Saraii McEwen, 8 b. April 2, 1827 ; d. in New London, Aug. 17, 

1833. 

II. Mart Pitkin, 8 b. Dec. 11, 1828. 

III. Solomon Rockwell, 8 b. Aug. 25, 1835; m. in Baltimore, Md., Jan. 2G, 
18G4, Julia Merritt Jackson; b. in N. Y., Aug. 4, 1840, daughter of 
Samuel and Julia Ann (Brown) Jackson. He has a son, Theodore 
Rockwell, 9 b. in Ellenville, Prince Georges County, Md., Jan. 31, 1865. 



Philemon Kirktjm, Esq., attorney at law, came from Norfolk to 
Winsted in 1800, and built a house on the site of Weed's Blcck, which 
was burned down March 25, 1853. He soon sold this house to Bissell 
Hinsdale, and in 1807 he built the original house on the lot next north of 
the Congregational Chapel, which was taken down by Dr. "Welch to 
make room for his present dwelling. In this house he lived until his re- 
moval to Norton, Ohio, in 1814. He was a native of Guilford, Conn., — 
served for four or five years in the revolutionary war, afterwards studied 
law with Augustus Pettibone, Esq., of Norfolk, and was in due course ad- 
mitted to the Litchfield bar. 

Tall of stature, erect of form, imposing in manner, fluent of speech, 
imaginative and impetuous, a Jeffersonian of the first wafer, he was a 
man of note in Northern Litchfield County. As a lawyer, he was well 
read, ingenious in argument, and oratorial in manner. The drawback to 
his professional success, and the blemish of his life, was an excitable and 
uncontrollable temper, mounting at times to frenzy. His competitors at 
the bar, when unable to cope with him in argument, not unfrequently con- 
trived to arouse his passions, thereby upsetting his argumentative facul- 
ties and destroying his self-control. He eventually withdrew from the 
bar, and limited his practice to Justice Courts. 

He was the sole representative of the Democratic party in the village 
during its early growth. His neighbors were straight-haired Federalists. 
He was thoroughly indoctrinated and saturated with the principles of 
liberty and equality. The Democratic farmers, on the surrounding hills, 
looked to him as the advocate and defender of their political faith, and 
the organizei of their parly. It was deemed necessary that a Democratic 
store should be got up in opposition to the Federal s'.ore of Mr. Hins- 
dale. Some twenty of his friends furnished the capital and made Mr. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 343 

Kirkum the managing partner. The Federals owned or controlled every 
foot of ground on Main street from George Dudley's down to Clifton 
Mill bridge, and would not, for love or money, allow the new store to be 
built on the street — consequently the gambrel-roofed building west of the 
Lake street bridge was erected and stocked with goods. A large, fanci- 
ful sign-board on the eastern gable, announced that " Philemon Kirkum 
& Co.," were prepared to sell goods to their friends and the world at 
large. It was ihe first sign-hoard ever erected in Winsted, and it made a 
sensation. The twenty partners, as they had spare time, were in atten- 
dance, to see the working of the new institution, and to discuss the politi- 
cal issues of the day. Crowds of customers and idlers were attracted to 
the " free and easy " establishment, and captivated by the principles there 
inculcated. It was soon decided to expand the business, and the building 
in the East village, now occupied by Mr. Bird, was erected for a branch 
store. 

A business so auspiciously inaugurated did not fulfill its promise. Clouds 
began to obscure its horizon. The partners began to perceive that a free 
and equal distribution of worldly goods, to customers unable or unwilling 
to pay for them, brought no percentage of profit, and an inadequate return 
for meeting the bills payable, and revoked his agency. Mr. Kirkum was 
found to be too imaginative and unsystematic for a country merchant; but 
his integrity was unimpeached. He resumed practice as a lawyer in a 
small way — talked philosophy, wrote poetry, made political speeches, and 
rode his old white horse as if he were charging the ranks of Cornwallis 
at York town. His tall, erect figure and soldierly gait, combined with 
fluency of speech, rising at times to real eloquence, made him a man to be 
noted among thousands. In 1814, as before stated, he left our village, 
with his wife and son and worldly good-, in a covered wagon drawn by a 
pair of oxen, and wended his weary way to the Western Reserve, where 
he invested the small avails of his Winsted property in an uncleared but 
now valuable farm, located in Norton, Ohio, which he occupied and im- 
proved during his remaining life, and left to his worthy grandson, Charles 
Coe, Esq., who was his stay and comfort in his declining years. A change 
of residence and associations essentially modified his peculiarities and 
smoothed down his sharp angularity of character. He diversified his farm 
labor with occasional law practice, and in his later years became a most 
popular " stump speaker " in the Harrison and subsequent campaigns. 
Mr. Kirkum failed to square his sharp cut principles of Democracy with 
slavery propagandism. He saw with loathing the political ascendency of 
the South and the knuckling of the North, and would none of it. He 
watched the progress of events with deep sorrow, and predicted the bloody 
issue which he did not live to see. He died in 1855 at the age of 91 
years. Age had not bent his erect form, nor scattered his flowing gray 



344 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

locks, which he wore in a revolutionary cue or club until the last years 
of* his life. His teeth, with one' exception, continued sound and white as 
long as he lived. His wife was a Mills, of Ea-t Windsor, who died before 
him. They had a daughter Eliza who married Eben Coe, son of Jonathan 3 
in the Coe Genealogy ; and a son George who became a highly esteemed 
member of the bar in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, and died not far from IS GO, 
leaving one or more children. 

JosrAii ArLET, from Torrington, this year bought a house and land on 
the hill road to Colebrook, north of Nelson Beardsley, where he lived until 
his return to Torrington in 1804. He married, Feb. 4, 1795, Elizabeth, 
daughter of Chauncey Mills. 

Elijah Benedict, a blacksmith, came in this year, and worked in a 
shop on the west side of Lake street, opposite the old lean-todiouse, in 
which he resided. After two or three years he moved out of the town. 
He returned about 1810, and after remaining about five years, removed 
to the West. 

His first wife died during his second residence here, and he married 
(2d) Lovina, clau. of Simeon Moore. He had children by his first wife, 
Gershom, Hepzibah, and Ketura, and perhaps others. 

Nathaniel Smith is found on the tax list of this year, and in 1801 
he purchased land in the vicinity of Everett C. Holmes, on which he 
lived until his sale of the same in 1806 to Zebina Smith. 

Solomon Lemlt, a forgeman, came from Colebrook this year, and 
lived in a house, now torn down, on Lake street, above the parting of the 
new Winchester road, until about 1815, when he moved to Salisbury. 
He had a brother, Jacob Lemly, who came here the following year, and 
lived in a house now torn down, adjacent to Hurlbut's forge dam, until 
his death, about 1815. They were of Low Dutch extraction, and each 
had a large family of children, most of whom were named in pairs, — 
distinguished from each other by taking their patronynim Christian name 
as a surname. There was a John Solomon and John Jacob, Hannah 
Solomon and a Hannah Jacob, a Sol. Sol. and a Jake Jake, and a like 
duplication of Sally and Polly. No descendants of either family remain 
in the town. 

William Davis first appears on the list of this year. He lived on 
West Lake street, in a small house then standing in front of the first 
house west of the lake outlet, until his death in 1>si>.">. 

His wife was a Hancock, from South wick, Ma-s. They had two dau., 
Lucy and Sally, who m. Timothy and Alpheus Persons, — and a son. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 345 

Lyman, who went to Clayville, N. Y., about 1820, and probably died 
there. 

Gedeliaii Chase, a miller, came from New Hartford to Winsted in 
1799 or 1800, and look charge of the Austin Mill, living in the old lean- 
to Mill House on Lake street, near the lake outlet, until his removal to 
Old Winchester about 1807, where he afterwards resided most of his 
remaining life. He was b. Nov. 28, 1761, and d. July 4, 1832. He m.. 
Nov. 11, 1790, Rebecca , b. July 11, 1768. 

CHILDREN. 

I.George, b. Ap. 18, 1792. V. Reuben, b. March 28, 1800. 

II. Charlotte, b. Aug. 15, 1794. VI. Harriet, b. May 8, 1804. 

III. Dudley, b. Aug. 30, 179G. VII. Jerusha, b. June 20, 1810. 

IV. Betsey, b. May 22, 1798. VIII. Horace, b. Oct. 24, 1812. 



44 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ANCIENT AND MODERN WINSTED.— ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

In tracing the settlement of the Winsted section of the town, we have 
thus far made no mention of the Ecclesiastical Society of Winsted as an 
organized hody. Its religious services up to this period were mainly 
held beyond the eastern border of the town. Its first meeting-house was 
there erected, and the first minister there ordained and settled. Its original 
members were residents along the old North Country road and its vicinity, 
a larger portion of them in Winchester and a considerable number in 
Barkhamsted. 

To modern Winsted, its origin and growth, its struggles and dissensions 
prior to 1801, would seem a myth, did not its quaint old records avouch 
the reality of its history. These records begin with a society meeting 
lawfully warned and held March 17, 1778, at the dwelling-house of John 
Balcom, by a warrant granted by Matthew Gillett, justice of the peace, 
dated seven days earlier. Of this meeting John Wright was chosen 
moderator, and Eleazer Kellogg clerk ; and Isaac Kellogg, Josiah Smith 
and John Balcom were appointed committee men ; and it was voted that 
the annual meetings of the society should be holden on the second Monday 
of December annually, and that warnings therefor should be set up at 
Austin's Mill, Abram Callers' shop, and at the crotch of the road that 
goes from John Wright's to Lemuel Walters, twelve days before such 
meeting. Another meeting, held September 15 of the same year, voted 
that the money paid to Mr. Porter and to Mr. Ausbon for preaching, and 
also the money due Mr. Balcom for boarding Mr. Ausbon, should be paid 
out of a tax when collected. At the annual meeting of this year it was 
votel " that a meeting be warned to see if this society are a mind to be 
made a distinct town." The same subject was brought up at various sub- 
sequent meetings, but no definite action appears to have resulted. 

At the annual meeting in 1780 the matter of locating and building a 
meeting-house seems to have been first agitated : and it was voted " that we 
will git the original plans of Winchester and Barkhamsted, and apply to 
Cornal Shelding to find the middle of this society, and if he cant by them 
give us the senter, then to measure the bounds of this society, the said 



FAMILY RECORDS. 347 

Sbekling to measure, and that this society will pay the cost to Cornal 
Shelding for doing the business for said society, and that Lieut. John 
Wright to see the Bisness done." The subject was resumed May 24, 
1782, when it was voted "that we do try to agree to pitch a stake for a 
meeting-house," and " that we apply to the next county court for a com- 
mittee to pitch a stake for our meeting-house," and that we nominate Esq. 
Asaph Hall of Goshen, Major Jiles Pettibone of Norfolk, and Esq. En- 
sign of Hartland." In December, 1792, Col. Sheldon was substituted 
for Esq. Ensign on this committee, and at a meeting, August 25, 1783, it 
was voted " to establish the stake for our meeting-house where it now 
stands pitched by Col. Shelding, Major Pettibone and Esq. Hall, and 
that Ensign Jesse Doolittle shall go and make returns to the Honorable 
County Court of our voting the establishment of our meeting-house 
stake." 

This looked like an auspicious beginning of the constructive work of 
the society, but the appearance was deceptive. A meeting was called, 
Dec. 22, 1783, "to see if the society will go on to bild our meeting-house 
where the stake now stands," and the question was decided in the negative. 
On the 2d of February, 1784, it was voted "that we chuse a comitte to 
go and view the society and se if we can't pitch a stake for ourselves ; " 
and December, 1784, it was voted "to go on and build a meting-house at 
the stake pitched by the committee " the house to be 45 by 35 feet and a 
suitable height for galleries ; and a tax of sixpence on the pound was 
laid for defraying expenses. This again looked hopeful ; but at a meeting 
in January, 1785, the hopeful project was knocked in the head by a vote 
"that all the bisness voated" in the previous meeting "be holy set aside 
consarning bilding a meeting house in this society." 

On the 9th of May, 1786, another committee, consisting of Capt. Josiah 
Smith, Nathaniel Russell, Ensign Jesse Doolittle, Othniel Brainart, Capt. 
Robert Whitford, and Sergt. Reuben Sweet pitched a stake at the West 
end of Jonathan Sweet's lot, where it was voted by more than two-thirds 
to build the house. In June following it was decided to build a house 50 
by 40 feet with height in proportion, and that an agent be sent to the 
county court to get the stake established. Again the project was nullified 
by a vote of Sept. 4, 1786, " that we will not send an agent to the County 
Court." 

Another stake- pitching committee was appointed Sept. 25, 178G, which 
seems to have performed its duty. In October following it was voted 
" that this meeting be adjourned to the place where the committee have 
prefixed for to build a meeting-house ; " and it was there " voted, by more 
than two-thirds, that we will bild a meeting house where the committe 
have pitched the stake." Although this vote of more than two-thirds was 
solemnly taken on the very ground " prefixed by the committe, yet subse- 



348 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

quent records show that the stake would not yet stay pitched. But, before 
tracing these measures to a final result, it is fitting to advert to other 
occurrences in the history of the Society. 

Up to 1786, preaching was had at irregular intervals, and no money 
raised by taxation for its support. Individuals seem to nave advanced 
money, and to have found difficulty in getting it refunded. The Society, 
in 1780, voted "to make up the sink of money due individuals for ad- 
vancements, according to Congress scale." In 1782, May 14, it was voted 
to hire preaching, and " that the committe do advise where to apply for a 
candidate," and that Lieut. Josiah Smith be appointed to read the Psalm 
on Sabbath days, and that Eleaser Kellogg read the Psalms when Lieut. 
Smith is absent. 

In 1783 it was voted to have preaching in the summer, and in the fall 
a tax of seven pounds was voted " to be applied for the youse of supporting 
singing." A committee was also chosen " to regulate the singing in this 
society on the Sabbath-day, and to introduce such tunes as they shall think 
proper to be sung on Sabbath days ; " and it was also voted that preaching 
should continue during the winter. 

It might be inferred, that with preaching summer and winter, and the 
support and regulation of singing under the supervision of three choristers 
and a committee to introduce tunes proper to be sung on the Sabbath, 
harmony and concert of action might have been promoted : but stakes 
could not be pitched and voted on so often without moral friction. Heart- 
burning and dissensions prevailed to such a degree that in October, 1785, 
a mutual council consisting of Rev. Messrs. Taylor of New Milford, Can- 
field of Roxbury, Huntington of Middlebury, Belden of Newington and 
Smalley of New Britain, was called to advise with the church and society 
in regard to the subsisting difficulties. The records fail to show the re- 
sult, if any was reached. Harmony, in any event, was not restored. 
Meetings were frequent, and contradictory in action. Votes passed at 
one stage of a meeting were not infrequently voted down before adjourn- 
ment, and the doings of one meeting were undone by another. The 
meetings were often protracted into the night, and unfair advantages 
taken in carrying measures at a late hour, that could not be accomplished 
in a full meeting. To correct some of these irregularities a standing rule 
was adopted about this time, " that no vote should be put after sunset for 
the filter, except the business so drive them that they find it necessary, 
and passed a vote to continue the same before sunset." Another vote re- 
quired " that all accounts against the society shall be brought to the annual 
meeting yearly, or shall be forfeit for the filter, except it be made to ap- 
pear that it could not be done." 

The following votes illustrate the way of doing business in committee 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 349 

of the whole, under the new rule, and show an example of thoroughness 
worthy of all imitation : 

Voted, Elkana Phelps, £1, lis., 4d. for hoarding Mr. Fowler eleven 
sabbaths. 

Voted, Eleanor Kellogg, £9, Gs., Od. for the youse of his house. 

Voted, Enoch Palmer for boarding ministers and house room for hold- 
ing meetings sabbath days, £1, 9s. 

Voted, Elisha Mallory for boarding Mr. Beach 1 week, 4 days, 12s. 

Voted, Capt. Josiah Smith, for boarding Mr. Hitchcock and other min- 
isters 3^ weeks, and keeping their horses, £1, Gs. 3d. 

Voted, Ensign Doolittle for going to Torringford to get Mr. Edmund 
Mills to preach hear, 3s. 

Voted, Samuel Hayden for holding meetings in his house for 28 Sab- 
baths, £2, 2s. 

Voted, That those that board ministers in the summer season, and keep 
their horses for the futer, be allowed 7s. Gd. a week. 

The pitching of stakes for a meeting house having been played out in 
178G, it was thought best to defer the building of a meeting house, and 
to settle a minister ; and accordingly, at the annual meeting of the year, 
it was " voted, by more than two-thirds, that we give Mr. Parsons a call, 
in order to a settlement." It was also voted to give him a salary of forty 
pounds a year, and the use of two hundred pounds as a Settlement. A 
committee was also appointed to jmrchase a place or settlement for the 
use of the minister of the value of about £200, to be holden as the prop- 
erty of the society. 

The church having united with the society in a call to Rev. Stephen 
Parsons to settle with them in the «o ; pel ministry, his reply was laid 
before the society on the 12th of March, 1787; whereupon it was voted 
to settle Mr. Parsons agreeable to his Ritten Answer, which is as fol- 
lows, viz : 

March y« 11th, 1787. 
To the Clmrch aiid Society of Winsted, loishing grace, mercy and peace to 

be multiplied unto you. 

Having taken into consideration the call you gave me to settle with 
you in the work of the Gospel Ministry, as it appears to me a matter of 
great importance that I am lead by the Spirit of God in the right way 
to promote the general cause of God in the world. I thought it my duty 
to give you some idea of my present profession and principles, respecting 
Christian fellowship and connection with churches. 

As to my profession it is what is called, in this state, a strict congrega- 
tionalist : and my connexions are with the ministers and churches of that 



350 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

denomination, which appears to me the nearest to the rule given in God's 
word, of any within the compass of my acquaintance, — on which account • 
I can- hy no means renounce my connection with them. Yet I could 
heartily wish the wall of partition between the different denominations 
was broken down, that all the true friends of Christ were united in one 
army, under the glorious captain of our salvation, against the kingdom of 
Satan, the prince of darkness. Wherefore, I think it my duty to maintain 
and cultivate liberal sentiments, and hold fellowship with all those who 
appear to practice and love the truth ; and if I was to receive an ordina- 
tion, I should choose to apply to a number of ministers of different de- 
nominations, not exceeding that of my own. 

If the church and society in this place can receive me on these princi- 
ples, and there is a prospect of their being united so that I may be use- 
ful in this part of the vineyard of Christ, and at the same time promote 
the general good of mankind, it appears to be my duty to comply with 
your call. Otherwise, I have no desire to be received, by giving up my 
principles, or renouncing my connections. I close with subscribing my- 
self, yours to serve in the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

STEPHEN PARSONS. 

Why this acceptance of the call did not result in the settlement of Mr. 
Parsons, does not appear. It may have been frustrated by a conflict of 
views between the candidate and the consociation, in regard to church 
order and fellowship. It only appears on record that the church and 
society, on the 18th of April, 1787, voted "to continue the call to Mr. 
Parsons to settle with us in the Gospel Ministry. 

The Parsonage Lot, which, a few years after, became a subject of fatal 
contention, was purchased at this time, and a tax was laid to provide the 
first payment therefor, and a parsonage house was soon after erected 
thereon, and so far finished as to serve as a place of worship until a meet- 
ing house should be located and erected. It stood east of Barkhamsted 
line, at the intersection of road from the clock factory, with the Old 
Country road, was occupied successively, by Rev. Mr. Woodworth, Moses 
Haydon, Isaac Brown and others, and was torn down many years ago. 

The location of a meeting house site was again attempted this year 
[1787]. A stake was pitched; and the society voted that they " be 
agreed to build," etc., but no building was built, and no further steps 
were taken in that direction until 1791. 

The records during this interval show the progress of events and the 
nature of the business transacted. A better knowledge of the. law of 
stake pitching and other ecclesiastical matters, was provided for by the 
purchase of a Society Law Book, and a quire of paper " to keep accompts 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 351 

on." The Law Rook was ordered to be kept two months at David An- 
stus', two months at Nathan Wheeler's, two months at Othniel Brainard's, 
two months at Sergt. Jonas Weed's, two months at Enoch Palmer's, and 
two months at Zebina Smith's ; and other regulations were adopted for a 
general diffusion of legal knowledge. An application to the Assembly was 
voted for a Land Tax " to better enable us to pay for the Parsonage Lot, 
and to build a Meeting House," — and then a vote was passed " that we 
will build a meeting house if we can be agreed on a place." 

In August, 1791, Rev. Ezra Woodworth preached in the society as a 
candidate, and a sharp negotiation soon followed, with reference to his 
settlement. No little diplomatic skill was found requisite to adjust the 
terms. Mr. Woodworth wanted an absolute conveyance to himself of 
the Parsonage Lot as a part of the bargain. A large portion of the 
society, on the other hand, were strenuously opposed to alienating the 
property to a minister, whose long stay with them would be very preca- 
rious. The minister carried his point, and on the 7th of November the 
society decided to make the conveyance in accordance with his demand, 
and the compact was completed. On the 15th December a committee 
was chosen to proceed with the ordination, and the 18th of January, 
1792, was assigned for the ill-omened ceremony. 

In the mean time, deep trouble in regard to the hard bargain of Mr. 
Woodworth with the society, was daily becoming more manifest. Six days 
before the ordination a meeting was called, and a committee appointed " to 
go and see if Mr. Woodworth will make any alterations as to his settle- 
ment or not," and another committee was appointed " to appear before 
the Ordaining Council, and oppose the opposition, if any there be, against 
his ordination." Four days after, another meeting was called " to see if 
the soc'ety will make any alterations as to giving our Society Farm as a 
settlement to Mr. Woodworth," and a committee of six was appointed to 
converse with him, and agree on some different plan of settlement. 

The interview resulted in the following change of terms, committed to 
writing : 

" Whereas, there is a dissatisfaction in some persons' minds in the pro- 
posals made to Mr. Woodworth in respect to his settlement, and in order 
to form a better union, propose to exchange the terms of the same as fol- 
lows, viz ; to except of the yuse of said farm as a Parsonage with the 
house and barn, said farm to be appraised by indifferent men when he re- 
ceives the same, and also when he resigns the same, and the betterments, if 
any there be to be allowed to him or his heirs, and the property to be kept 
good, to be as a settlement in the room of receiving the property of said 
farm as in the former plan : the vallew of said former proposals of settle- 



352 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

ment being made equal thereto, to be determined by the judgment of in- 
different men, to be paid in neat cattle in the spring, or fat cattle in the 
fall, as agreed on, and the salary to remain as in the former proposals. 
Dated Winsted, Jan. y e 16th, 1792. 

Ezra Woodworth, 
Nath. Crowe, 
Elkena Phelps, 
William Moore. 

This agreement removed all hindrance to the ordination, which took 
place on the day appointed. -Had the agreement been adhered to in good 
faith, it is more than probable that harmony would have been restored ; 
and that the faithful ministrations of a pastor valuing the souls of his 
flock more than their fleeces, would have strengthened the walls and en- 
larged the borders of this feeble Zion. 

Mr. Woodworth, now invested with the pastoral office, had a field for 
eminent usefulness. An inviolate adherence to the terms of adjustment 
effected two days before his ordination, was a dictate alike of policy and 
duty: but he and his adherents seem to have thought otherwise. A 
meeting of the society was called, April 6, 1792, which voted to reconsider 
the prior vote of Jan. 16, by which the tenure of the society par- 
sonage lot was changed, and that Mr. Woodworth should be put into pos- 
session of the same according to the terms first agreed on. 

The society, though hitherto divided as to the location of their meeting- 
house, seems to have acted harmoniously in other matters ; and nearly all 
were of the standing order: but this breach of faith on the part of the 
minister and his adherents produced irremediable discord. Certificates 
of withdrawal began to be handed in by seceding members, most of whom 
connected themselves with the infant Methodist and Baptist churches in 
the vicinity. Endeavors were made to recall members already withdrawn, 
and to prevent others from withdrawing, by an offer of the minister to 
relinquish a portion of his salary for the five coming years, but without 
avail. Secession went on until many of the best and ablest members of 
the church and society had identified themselves with other denominations. 

Notwithstanding this debilitated and distracted condition of the society, 
the adhering members resumed the project of locating and building a 
meeting-house, as the only means of sustaining their position. They 
voted, Sept. 14, 1792, not to build at the stake established by law, where- 
ever that might have been, and " to see if the sosiaty will Be willing to 
Bild a meeting-house at the senter of the land of the sosiaty, allowing 
those things that ought to be considered to draw from the same its due 
and proper weight ; " then followed a vote to build on " a certain nole of 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 353 

land at the West end of Mr. Woodworth's land, as near the town line as 
the ground will admit of;" and then a committee of nine men was ap- 
pointed to pitch a stake and apply to the Assembly to establish the same. 
The committee thus appointed reported to an adjourned meeting. October 
2, as follows : 

'■'To the Inhabitants of the Society of Winsted, convened at the usual place 
by us, the 2d day of October, 1792 : 

" Whereas, we, the subscribers, being appointed a Com. at the last 
special meting, to fix a Stake on a Sertain Spot of Ground near the town 
line, so called, on the Rev. Mr. Woodworth's lot, at the most convenient 
spot to erect a meating-house for the inhabitants of said society near tlva 
town line, in consequence of our appointment, we, on the above said 2d 
day of October, repaired to said place, and after taking into the moste 
mature and Deliberate consideration, all those matters and circumstances 
that ought to be considered according to the best information gained and 
our ability, we are of opinion that the Sartain spot of ground is situated 
near the heighth of said nole upon said lot, or near the south end to Beach 
Stake and Stones cast up, to be the most convenient and commodious 
place for the same, and have fixed the above said stake and stones, and 
marked the same on the particular spot of ground which we have estab- 
lished for said purpose, the day and date above certifyed by us, the day and 
date above." 

This lucid report was, by vote, " excepted," and measures were taken 
to get the place established by the Assembly. Measures were also taken 
to ascertain the size and length of timber required, and to see how cheap 
they could get some man to build the house, and a tax of a shilling on the 
pound was laid. 

The Beach Stake, now planted, marked, reported, and accepted, was 
destined to stand. A day was fixed for the people to meet for the purpose 
of finding stone and laying the under-pinning. It was also voted that the 
people will find cake and cheese by free donation for refreshment at raising 
the meeting-house. 

At this stage of the proceedings, another attempt was made to conciliate 
" those of the society that think themselves agreaved as to giving away 
the society's farm," &c, by submitting the matters of grievance to arbitra- 
tion, but no conclusion was reached. The meeting house was raised, cov- 
ered in and floored in season for the Annual Meeting, Nov. 25, 1793. It 
stood on the south border of a grove near the east and west road, between 
the late residence of Harris Brown, deceased, and the old country road. 
It was 50 feet long, 40 feet broad, and two stories high, without tower or 
steeple, a very unpretending and short-lived sanctuary. No traces of it 
now remain except a large stone horse-block. It was sold and taken 
45 



354 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

down, when the present house of worship was first erected. Some of its 
timbers were worked into the original building of the East Village Hotel. 
The doings of the Society have now been brought down to 1793, a 
period of fifteen years. It took twelve years of controversy to locate a 
meeting house, and it might have required a dozen years more had not 
the intervening contest about the settlement of a minister led to the 
withdrawal of some twenty members. The unfinished church opened its 
doors to a congregation, small in numbers, disheartened by long dissen- 
tions, and unable to sustain the burdens they had assumed. The records 
of the following seven years indicate the quiet of exhaustion rather than 
the prevalence of Christian graces. Taxes were more easily laid than 
collected. New names from time to time appear on the records, but the 
accessions brought no element of strength to the Society as then con- 
stituted and located, for the new comers were mainly from the Still 
River valley, now filling up with settlers interested in a transfer of the 
meeting house to their vicinity. 

Patient endurance of the burden of supporting a grasping minister 
had its limit. At the annual meeting in 1797 it was voted " to choose a 
committee of five to treat with Rev. Mr. Woodworth, to see what 
measures can be come into on account of the burthen the Society is 
under as to paying his salary, and whether he is willing for a dismission 
or not." This vole was followed by another in December following, " to 
choose a committee, with power to agree with Rev. Mr. Woodworth on 
his dismission, and that said committee allow him no more than the Society's 
former contracts." This committee arranged with the pastor that the 
existing connection should be dissolved at the expiration of the year, and 
that the Society should pay and confirm all contracts with Mr. Wood- 
worth, and what should be found due him to be paid or secured by notes 
of hand on demand. It was also voted to call a dismissing council on 
the 9th of January, 1798. The result of this council is not recorded, 
but the dismission took place at or near the date specified. Mr. Wood- 
worth was afterwards settled at Whitestown, near Utica, N. Y., for 
several years. His subsequent history is unknown. 

In January, 1799, Rev. Salmon King, after preaching as a candidate 
for settlement, received a call, which he declined, and in October follow- 
ing a call was voted to Rev. Noah Simons, but was not accepted. 

About this time Rev. Aaron Kinney was employed and continued to 
supply the pulpit for four or five years. 

Hitherto the old north road had been the great thoroughfare of travel 
for the adjoining region, and a large portion of our inhabitants had 
settled along its borders, on Wallen's Hill, and northwestward to Cole- 
brook line, and the location of the meeting house best suited their con- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 355 

venience. But near the close of the century the water power of the 
Still River and Marl River valleys began to attract manufacturers to 
those secluded and comparatively inaccessible regions. The Green 
Woods turnpike, a shorter and far more level line of travel than the old 
road over the hills, was opened in 1799. It at once diverted all the 
long travel from the hill road and opened a direct access to the valleys. 
Hamlets grew up around the Doolittle and Austin Mills. The Wallen's 
Hill meeting house ceased to he central, and it became apparent that the 
young and energetic new comers of the valleys were soon to assume the 
lead, and take the direction of Society affairs out of the hands of the 
dispirited and exhausted champions on the Old Country road. 

In July, 1799, a vote was carried for building a new meeting house 
by subscription, in one year from the first of October then next, where 
Captain Charles Wright and others had that day pitched a stake, and on 
the 7th of October following, Colonel Hezekiah Hopkins of Harvvinton, 
Esq. Elisha Smith of Torrington, and Major Jeremiah Phelps of 
Norfolk, were appointed to advise as to the location, and at the annual 
meeting following it was decided to build the house where this committee 
had put a stake and stones, if the county court should establish the 
same. 

These brief votes embrace all the preparatory measures recorded in 
reference to building the present house of worship in the east village of 
Winsted, and the virtual extinction of the ancient regime on Wallen's 
Hill. New men, not identified with old controversies, took the lead, and 
effected an entire renovation of the Society. 

The new meeting house, particularly described in the following 
chapter, was raised, covered in, and floored in 1800, and in this condition 
was used for worship until its final completion in 1805 ; the funds 
originally subscribed and contributed not being adequate for its comple- 
tion, application was made to the legislature for a lottery in aid of the 
enterprise. There were at the same time two other like applications 
from the societies of Preston in New London County, and Canterbury in 
Windham County, and a joint lottery was granted to the three societies. 
They were jointly represented in the management of this gambling 
scheme, and the details were so arranged that the two drawings were 
allowed by the Winsted Society to be made in Preston and Canterbury } 
in consideration of some equivalent advantages conceded to Winsted. 
As a result of these arrangements, the two eastern societies failed to 
realize any profit, while Winsted secured about six hundred dollars. 
With this sum, and additional subscriptions, the interior of the house was 
finished and the building painted in 1805. 

The pulpit of the new meeting house was first supplied by Rev. 
Aaron Kinney, who had been for a few years previous the minister in 



356 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

charge at the first meeting house on Wallen's Hill. He continued his 
labors two cr three years, and then removed to Alford, Berkshire Co., 
Mass. Several candidates were then successively employed for brief 
periods, the last of whom was Rev. James Beach, who received a pastoral 
call, and was ordained on the 1st day of January, 180G, with a salary of 
§350 a year, and an advance of funds to purchase a dwelling, repayable 
in install mcnts from year to year. His pastorate continued until his 
dismi-sion in 1842. His ministerial character and labors, as well as 
those of Rev. Mr. Kinney, are referred to in personal notices of them 
in their order as incoming citizens of the Society. 

Mr. Beach was succeeded by Rev. Timothy M. Dwight, who, after 
supplying the pulpit until Februaiy, 1844, received a call for settlement, 
which he declined; soon after which Rev. Augustus Porneroy, after sup- 
plying the pulpit for two or three months, received a nearly unanimous 
call to the pastorate, and was presented to the consociation for approval 
and installation in June following. After a long and searching examina- 
tion on the question of approval, it was found that there was a majority 
of one in the united body sustaining his examination, but on analyzing 
the vote, it appeared that there was a majority of two of the lay delegates 
sustaining, and a majority of one of the clerical members of the body 
non-sustaining the examination. By one of the rules of the body, in 
case of non-concurrence of either, the clerical or lay delegates — although 
there should be a majority of the whole — in case of a call for the appli- 
cation of this rule, the candidate should be rejected. The call was made 
by a lay membsr, and the synodal body refused to install the candidate. 

Mr. Porneroy continued to supply the pulpit for about a year after 
this result ; near the end of which the church dissolved its connection 
with the Consociation ; and the cad for his settlement was renewed on 
the 19th of November, 1844; but the majority in his favor being essen- 
tially reduced, he declined acceptance, and withdrew to another field of 
labor. "We state the facts of this case in the briefest possible form, with- 
out note or commentary, save that the grounds of objection to Mr. Porn- 
eroy were doctrinal rather than personal, and that his Christian character 
was unquestioned. 

After Mr. Porneroy, several other candidates filled the pulpit, — the 
most prominent of whom, and the longest incumbent, was Rev. John D. 
Baldwin, — afterwards member of Congress from the Worcester District, 
Mass. After his departure, Rev. Ira Pettibone, from York Mills, N. Y., 
was employed, called and settled early in 1846. He continued his pas- 
torate until measures were taken for the formation of a Second Congre- 
gational Church in the West Village, when he resigned, and engaged in 
teaching at Cornwall. His resignation was not occasioned by discontent 
or dissention in the Congregation. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 357 

In 1853, fifty-one members of the church, residing in the "West Village, 
were regularly dismissed in order to form themselves into a new church. 
They were immediately thereafter organized as " The Second Congrega- 
tional Church of Winsted." 

In February, 1854, Eev. Henry A. Russell, a graduate of Yale Theo- 
logical Seminary, was called and ordained to the pastorate of the first 
church, and continued his ministrations until his resignation and dismissal, 
Aug. 25, 1858. 

On the 30th December, 1859, Rev. James B. Pierson was called; and 
the call was unanimously renewed in May, 1SG0, and he was ordained 
Nov. 14, following. His ministrations continued until his dismission in 
March, 18G2. 

Rev. M. McG. Dana, now pastor of the First Cong. Church, Norwich, 
supplied the pulpit from May 11, 1862, until Dec. 25, 1864; and during 
the intermediate time a call for settlement was tendered him, which he 
declined. 

In January, 1S67, a call to the pastorate was tendered Rev. — "Walker, 
and accepted by him, but was not consummated by installation. lie sup- 
plied the pulpit until April, 18G9. Rev. II. E. Cooley afterwards supplied 
the pulpit for one year, ending Sept. 1, 1870. 

On the loth of October, 1870, Rev. Thomas M. Miles, the present 
worthy incumbent was called, and on the 10th of November, following, 
was installed as pastor. 

The centennial of the First Congregational Church of Winsted will 
occur on the 17th day of March, 1878; when it is to be hoped that its 
birth will be suitably commemorated, and its interior workings, its periods 
of depressions and revival, — its diminutions and accessions of member- 
ship, — the merits and demerits of its pastors, office-bearers, and mem- 
bers, will be set forth in due order by a clerical hand. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

VILLAGES OP WTNSTED.— EARLY ASPECT AND GROWTH. 

Until 1799, the territory now within the Borough lines of Winsted was 
mainly a wilderness, with fifteen to twenty families along its northern 
border. A road had been brought down from Old Winchester to Austin's 
Mill, near the outlet of the lake stream, and thence down the hill to the 
new forge immediately below. Around these establishments a small 
hamlet had arisen. From the east, another road came down to Doolittle's 
mill, on Still River, immediately south of the stone-arched bridge. 

A bridle-path was opened near the close of the Revolutionary War 
running eastward down the hill from Austin's Mill to the depot grounds 
of the Connecticut Western Railroad, thence crossing the Lake stream 
near Meadow Street Bridge, and Mad River, where the Rockwell tannery 
now stands, then following the line of Hinsdale street easterly to Still 
River, and then following its west bank northerly to Doolittle's Mill. 
Subsequently the traveled road diverged from the bridle path at the depot 
grounds, and crossed the river at the present Lake Street bridge, and 
thence, following the line of Main street northerly some fifty rods, turned 
northeasterly, crossing over the site of John T. Rockwell's house, and re- 
joined the original bridle path near the old school house of the Fourth 
District, and then followed its line to the Doolittle mill. 

The school-house of the Fourth, or West Winsted, District was a cen- 
tral point where the Spencer Street road, then populated with nearly twice 
as many families as at present, joined the Hinsdale Street road. The Coe 
Street road, then largely populated, came down along the line of Indian 
Meadow Brook and Mad River to near the residence of Mrs. Samuel W. 
Coe, where it turned easterly, and passing below the house of Sarah 
Loomis, joined the Spencer Street road near the school house. From the 
Doolittle Mill a road ran southerly, east of Still river, towards Torring- 
ford, on which the Potters, Rogers, Wheelers, Rowleys, Porters, Knowl- 
tons, Brainards and others had settled. In 1799 the old Higley tavern, 
still standing, immediately south of Camp's brick block, and a gambrel- 
roofed house on the site of Moses Camp's residence, were the only build- 
ings on the line of Main street between the bridge crossing Indian Meadow 
brook, and the Green Woods turnpike bridge crossing Still river. With 
these exceptions, the whole area of the borough lying south of Hinsdale 



FAMILY RECORDS. 359 

street, and bordered by Mad river and Still river, was without a habitation 
and without a road, except the part of Main street between John T. 
Rockwell's and the old tavern above mentioned. The only way of reach- 
ing Hartford or any of the other Eastern towns, from the Winsted valley, 
was up Wallen's Hill, by way of the Doolittle Mill, and then by the Old 
North Road. There were no - light wagons or carriages in those days; 
and if there had been any, the roads were too rough for their use. White- 
wood lumber and white-ash oars and sweeps, nearly the only marketable 
products of the forests, were carried to Hartford, Windsor, and Wethers- 
field, on ox carts and sleds. Fat beeves and hogs for the West Tndia 
market went on foot to tide water to be butchered and packed. Every 
farmer went to the Connecticut river in shad time, with a strong empty 
bed tick, in which to stow away his year's supply of fish, and bring them 
home loaded across his horse's back. From Old Winchester to the north 
end of New Hartford was a good day's journey. With a good horse, 
good weather, and good luck, the shad fisheries could be reached in another 
day. If the shad could be bought for a copper a-piece, and the journey 
accomplished in five days, the venture was considered a prosperous one. 

In this state of things, the opening of the Talcott Mountain and Green 
Woods turnpikes was an event as auspicious to our fathers, as was the 
opening of the Naugatuck Railroad to their children, or as is the majestic 
march of the Connecticut Western Railroad trains up the Norfolk hills, to 
our present community. 

The Old North Road avoided the water-courses, and sought the hill 
tops. It crossed the streams at the foot of one steep hill and forthwith 
began the ascent of another, sometimes by a zig-zag path. The turnpike, 
on the other hand, followed the line of the Farniington and its Pleasant 
Valley tributary, then up the line of Mad river to Norfolk and onward 
towards Albany by comparatively easy grades and a smooth well rounded 
roadway. Entering the Borough at the Still River bridge in the south- 
east, it penetrated the tangled forest of hemlocks and ivies* along the 
bank of Mad river northwesterly, and gave easy access to the present 
centre of business and population. 

From the Doolittle Mill another road was at once extended west of 
Still river down to the turnpike ; and these two roads, now r known as Main 
street and North Main street, made a natural connection of the two ham- 
hits, and formed the nucleus of our consolidated village, The level area 
at the joining of the two roads made a natural and convenient centre of 
population for the renovated church and society, and an eligible parade 
ground. The original highway was laid six rods wide through the centre 
of the present Green Woods Park, and the new meeting-house lot was 

* The misapplied term " ivy," has so long been used to designate the " calmia" 
that this most splendid of our flowering shrubs is almost unknown by its true botani- 
cal name. 



300 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

located on the west side of the highway, extending westerly to the west 
border of the Park, and southerly to the turnpike. The house fronted on 
the highway and extended back to Woodruff's confectionery store. It 
was built, floored and covered in 1$00, a year after the opening of the 
turnpike ; and was, for the period when it was built, the best proportioned 
and finished church edifice in the region. The interior was completed five 
years afterward, in a style of the then modern composite architecture. 

For its day, it was a sightly, well-proportioned building, with tower and 
cupola at the east end. Its inner furnishing and adornment was pic- 
turesque. The body of the audience room was occupied by three aisles, 
with high-paneled, square pews of unpainted pine. The pulpit was an 
eight-square tub, supported by a single pillar, standing about ten feet high, 
and resembling an immense goblet. Narrow, rectangular stairs, with 
elaborate railings, ascended from each end of the altar to half the height 
of the structure, and then turned toward each other, and met at a two-and- 
a-half-foot platform in rear of the tub, from which a door opened to receive 
the preacher, and on being closed a seat was turned down for him to sit 
on, and affording scant room for a companion to sit by his tide. The 
crowning appendage of this unique structure was an eight-square wooden 
sounding board, suspended by a half inch square iron rod fastened in the 
arched ceiling. It resembled a woolen tassel attached to a frail cord in- 
capable of sustaining it. It vibrated sensibly with every motion of the 
air, and fearfully when the windows were open, and a thunder storm im- 
pending. This feature gave to the concern an element of the sublime, 
which modified its fantastical character, especially in the eyes of the youth- 
ful worshippers, whose fears of the demolition of the minister by the 
breaking of the imaginary string were not altogether unreasonable. 

A row of columns, arranged in an ox-bow line, supported the gallery, 
the curve at the east end of the room being opposite the pulpit at the 
west end. A single row of singer's seats went around the entire front 
line of the gallery, so that every singer could see the majestic swing of 
the chief chorister's arm as he beat the time from the center of the arched 
line, though they at the extreme ends could but faintly hear the pitch- 
pipe. A narrow, elevated alley ran in the rear of the singer's seats ; and 
in the rear of this, on the sides of the house, were still more elevated 
pews, furnishing admirable places of concealed retirement for the boys 
and girls who chose to worship in a more cheerful way than their parents 
below would have approved. 

In rear of the chorister's seat, and falling back into the tower of the 
building were two commodious pews, one appropriated to the class of 
young men who brushed and greased their upper hair into a high pyra- 
mid over the forehead, and tied that which descended behind into a pipe- 
stem cue, who wore wide projecting ruffles at the bosom, and Suwarrow 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 3(jl 

boots, with pendant silk tassels at the knees, and magnified their strut by 
anchoring their thumbs in the arm-holes of their waistcoats ; and the 
other appropriated to the young women who wore gunboat-bonnets, well- 
displayed bosoms and street-sweeping skirts or trails. By what rule of 
selection the parties were dignified to these high places, was never made 
known to the compiler ; but according to his best recollection, they were 
mainly composed of clerks and schoolmasters, tailoresses and school- 
marms. Into these pews, compeers of their occupants from neighboring 
parishes were ushered, iu stately form. 

As the congregation increased in numbers, the two gallery pews before 
appropriated to worshippers of the colored persuasion were needed by 
their white brethren and sisters, and two corner pews were erected over 
the gallery stairs, for the special use of the colored worshippers. The 
position of these pews was lofty, but the access was so difficult, and the 
honor of occupancy so dubious, that the prayers and praises of the sanc- 
tuary ceased to be participated in by the African race. 

The parishioners were seated in the lower pews by an annually ap- 
pointed committee, who were required to take into consideration the com- 
bined elements of age, wealth, and official position in assigning seats of 
honor or mediocrity. This heart-burning method of seating the congre- 
gation grew out of the system of supporting the gospel by taxation, and 
ceased when the funds were raised by annual sales of the pews by auc- 
tion, about 1820. In Norfolk, and perhaps some other neighboring par- 
ishes, the old system is believed to be still retained. 

The interior of the house retained its pristine form and adornments 
until 1828, when the pulpit, sounding-board and all, was taken down, and 
a less pretentious, but more convenient one, was placed at the east end of 
the audience room, the floor was laid on an inclined plane, raising it some 
four feet above a level at the west end, and modern slips were put thereon 
which faced eastward. In the gallery the aristocratic front pews, and 
the devil-pos<essed side pews were removed. Rising tiers of seats for 
singers occupied the place of the former, and open seats along the walls, 
without high screens to hide the unruly boys and girls from the view of 
their parents below, were erected. The untenanted cockloft negro pews 
over the stairs were left intact. In 1848, the house was removed to its 
present site, and so entirely remodeled, without and within, that only the 
frame of the original building remains. The interior is tastily and con- 
veniently arranged and furnished. A fine toned organ has recently been 
purchased, at a cost of $2,000, and placed in the choir, indicating the 
prosperity and liberal spirit of the congregation. 

The six-rod highway being insufficient for a parade ground, the society 
purchased, in December, 1802, a strip of land five rods wide, extending 
northerly on the east line of the highway, to near the Episcopal Church, 
46 



3(}2 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

" to be forever kept for a public parade." About tbe same time a strip of 
land was purchased, by individuals, on the west side of the six-rod high- 
way, extending north from the north line of the meeting-house, a distance 
of nine rods, and with a width of fifty-four feet, for the purpose of erect- 
ing horse sheds thereon. The sbeds were eventually built in the rear of 
this land, opening on its we*t line and leaving the land open to the public. 
A strip of the same width was some years after thrown open to the pub- 
lic, extending north to the Holabird premises, thus making a parade 
ground about fourteen rods wide from east to west, and twenty-five to 
thirty roods long. 

From the Rock House, westerly, to the Old Tavern in the West Vil- 
lage, the turnpike, when opened, ran through a nearly unbroken forest 
There was one small opening on the flat, where some unknown person 
had once built a log shanty, which had then been abandoned ; and anoth- 
er a little north. of High street, and a little east of Elizur B. Parsons 
house, where a log house once stood, of unknown origin. We have re- 
ferred to the two hamlets around the two mills at the lake outlet, and the 
stone bridge on Still River. The first of these extended down the hill to, 
and along the turnpike at Lake street bridge. The other extended south 
along the new road to the parade ground or green, and the contiguous 
Turnpike. These sections, under the designations of West street and 
East street, became separate and rival villages, whose bitter and frequent 
contentions about Post Office -location, road improvements, and business 
enterprises, have given to our community an unenviable notoriety, and to 
the Post Office Department a constant annoyance. 

The extension of the Naugatuck Railroad to Winsted, with its termi- 
nus intermediate between the two villages, gave rise to another distinct 
village on " the Flat," which has expanded in each direction, so as to unite 
with both of the rival sections. It would seem a natural result of this 
physical consolidation, that sectional feelings and interests would have 
died away, but as yet, old animosities and new causes of contention have 
prevented this most desirable consummation. 




Jrtec tut^6 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

SETTLERS— FAMILY RECORDS— SCHOOL HOUSES AND SCHOOLS-STATISTICS. 
1801 TO 1811. 

The Rockwell Brothers — Solomon, Reuben, Alpha, and Martin — 
were engaged in the iron business in Colebrook, at the close of the last 
century. Their works were on the stream flowing out of the meadows 
at the center, which were submerged by their dam, making an extensive 
pond of shallow water ; and a nuisance was generated thereby which 
caused the death of several residents of the vicinity by fever. It con- 
sequently became necessary to lower their clam and drain the meadows 
in order to disinfect the atmosphere. This rendered the water power 
insufficient for their works, and obliged them to change their locality. 
In 1799 they bought the Austin Mill and water power from the lake 
outlet to Meadow street bridge, except the Jenkins & Boyd interest in 
the upper forge, and in 1802 removed one of their Colebrook forges to 
the site of Timothy Hulbert's present Iron Works, and a few years after, 
built another forge on the site of Lathrop & Barton's Lake Stream 
Cutlery Works. 

Solomon Rockwell, Esq., came to Winsted this year, and took up 
his abode in the house, built by David Austin, Jr., near the lake outlet, 
and continued his residence there until the completion of the homestead 
of his after life, now owned by his daughter, Mrs. Jerusha R. Boyd. 

No one of the founders of our village made a deeper impress on its 
institutions and moral character, or did more to increase its business and 
stimulate public improvements than Mr. Rockwell. He was the first 
justice of the peace in the Society, and was the foremost in all measures 
of public and benevolent enterprise. The following sketch of his 
character was drawn in substance by another hand, soon after his death : 

"As a business man he possessed great energy, and a good degree of 
prudence and sound discretion, lie successfully accomplished most of 
his business projects, and although in his early career some of his enter- 
prises were attended with disasters which would have crushed an ordinary 



364 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

man, he was never disheartened. If one project failed he tried another. 
Experience taught him prudence, without in any degree diminishing his 
energetic and sanguine temperament. He was a man of integrity, con- 
stitutionally and from principle, and was liberal and generous, without 
a narrow or contracted streak in his character. He practised hospitality, 
without stint or grudging. His unwearied cheerfulness, his genial 
humor, and exhaustless fund of anecdote made him the favorite of old 
and young, wise and simple. He was a true gentleman of the old 
school, a puritan of the puritans, yet liberal and catholic in his religious 
views. 

" His profession of faith in the Redeemer was made after his fiftieth 
year, and his subsequent life gave witness of a good profession. His 
faith rested not in abstractions, but was manifested in works of love and 
mercy. After the prostration of his body and mind by paralysis his 
faith knew no abatement, but shone clear and tranquil to the closing 
scene of life." 

In May 1835, while present at a fire which consumed his woolen 
factory, he was struck down by paralysis, which for some time rendered 
him helpless and speechless. After a partial recovery, a second attack 
in 1838, followed in a few weeks by a third, so impaired his bodily and 
mental powers that death was a messenger of mercy rather than of 
judgment. He died August 1, 1838, aged seventy-four and a half years. 

1801. 

Deacon Alpha Rockwell, younger brother of Solomon, was the 
first male child born in Colebrook, as indicated by his baptismal name. 
He came to Winsted in 1801, and during the same year erected his 
homestead on the corner of Main and Lake streets, where the Beardsley 
House now stands. His health was impaired in childhood by whooping 
cough, which permanently affected his lungs and terminated in death by 
consumption, in the fifty-first year of his age. 

Associated in business with his more versatile and sanguine brother, 
Solomon, his vigilance and method, and his skill as an accountant and 
financier imparted to the firm the qualities essential to success in its 
varied and complicated transactions. No two brothers ever acted more 
in accord with each other, or were bound together by more sincere 
affection. 

As a member of society he was active in promoting education and 
good morals. As a father, husband, and brother he was affectionate and 
loving beyona most men. As a Christian he was eminent for piety, and 
zealously efficient in furthering the interests of the church of which he 
was a member and office-bearer. He died in the triumph of Christian 
faith, June 1, 1818, aged 50 years. 





. (^2co/>4^/^ 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 365 

Though only two of the Rockwell brothers moved to Winsted, yet 
descendants of four of them are now, or have been, residents here, while 
the fifth died childless. 

Deacon William Rockwell, 1 from England, came to Dorchester, 
Mass., in 1630, thence with the early planters to Windsor, Conn., where 
he died May 15, 1640. He married in England, Susanna Chapin, born 
April 5, 1602, who married (2d) May 29, 1645, Mathew Grant, and 
died y^.u^noer 14, 1666. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Joan, 2 b. England, April 25, 1625 ; m. Jeffrey Baker. 

II. John, 2 b. England, July 18, 1627. 

III. Mart, 2 probably died young ; not named in Mathew Grant's record. 

IV. Samuel, 2 b. Dorcbester, Mass., March 28, 1631. 

V. Ruth, 2 b. Dorchester, August — , 1633; m. October 7, 1652, Christo- 

pbcr Huntington, and among her descendants is General Ulysses S. 
Grant, the President of the United States. 
VI. Joseph, 2 date of birth not known ; d. young. 

VII. Sakah, 2 b. Windsor, Conn., July 24, 1638 ; m. Walter Gaylord. 

Samuel Rockwell 2 married, April 7, 1660, Mary Norton of Say- 
brook, daughter of Thomas and Grace (Wells) Norton of Guilford, 
Conn. 

CHILDREN, ALL BORN IN WINDSOR. 

I. Mart, 3 b. Jan. 18, 1662; m., Oct. 23, 1683, Josiah Loomis. 

II. Abigail, 8 b. Aug. 23, 1664; d. May 3, 1665. 

III. Samuel, 3 b. Oct. 19, 1667 ; m., Jan. 10, 1694, Elizabeth Gaylord. 

IV. Joseph, 3 b. May 22, 1670; m. Elizabeth Drake. 
V. John, 3 b. May 31, 1673; m. Anne Skinner. 

VI. Abigail, 3 b. April 11, 1676; m. John Smith. 

VII. Josiah, 3 b. March 15, 1678; m., Dec. 14, 1713, Rebecca Loomis, of 

Lebanon. 

JosEPn Rockwell, 8 "sarjant," m. Elizabeth Drake, born Nov. 4, 
1 675, daughter of Job and Elizabeth (Alvord) Drake. He d. June 26, 
1733, aged 63 years. 

CHILDREN, ALL BORN IN WINDSOR. 

I. Joseph,* b. Nov. 23, 1695; m. Hannah Huntington. 

II. Elizabeth, 4 b. Dec. 12, 1698. 

III. Benjamin, 4 b. Oct. 26, 1700; m. Margaret Drake. 

IV. James, 4 b. June 3, 1704; m., Nov. 7, 1728, Abigail Loomis. 

V. Job, 4 b. April 13, 1709; m., Jan. 20, 1736-7, Miriam Hayden. 

VI. Elizabeth, 4 b. July 24, 1713 ; m. Jonatban Huntington. 

Joseph Rockwell 4 married Hannah Huntington, born Norwich, 
Conn., March 25, 1693-4, daughter of John and Abigail (Lathrop) 
Huntington, and grand- daughter of Christopher and Ruth 2 (Rockwell) 



366 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

She died of small-pox 



Huntington. He died Oct. 16, 1746, aged 51 
Jan. 18, 1761, aged 67 years. 

CHILDREN, ALL BORN IN WINDSOR. 



I. Joseph, 6 
II. Hannah, 5 

III. A son 5 (twin), 

IV. Jerusha 5 (twin) 
V. Jonathan, 5 

VI. Samuel, 5 
VII. Sam del, 5 



b. March 15, 1715-16 ; m. Anna Dodd. 

b. Dec. 25, 1717. 

b. June 5, 1720; d. same day. 

b. June 5, 1720. 

b. May 2, 1723. 

b. March 9, 1725-6; d. young. 

b. Jan. 19, 1728; m. Hepzibah Pratt. 



Joseph Rockwell 5 married Anna Dodd. He died - 
aged 60. 

CHILDREN, ALL BORN IN EAST WINDSOR. 



-, 1775. 



m. Nathan Bass. 

b. Nov. 14, 1744, O. S. ; m. Lucy Wright. 

m. William Goodwin. 



I. Anna, 

II. JOHN. 

III. Elijah, 15 

IV. Mary, 
V. Jerusha. 

VI. Elizabeth. 6 
VII. Gurdon. 6 
VIII. Joseph. 
IX. Elihu, lived in Winchester. 

Samuel Rockwell 5 married Hepzibah Pratt, born in East Hartford 
(date unknown), daughter of Jonathan and Mary (Benton) Pratt, grand 
daughter of John and Hepzibah Pratt, and great-grand-daughter of John 
Pratt, one of the original members of Mr. Hooker's Cambridge Church, 
and an early settler of Hartford, where he died July 15, 1655, leaving a 
widow Elizabeth, and sons John and Daniel. He died at Colebrook Sept. 
7, 1794, aged 66. She died , 1814. 



CHILDREN, 
b. East Windsor, Feb. 18, 1759. 



I. Samuel, 
II Timothy, 
Canaan 

III. Solomon, 11 

IV. Solomon,' 1 
V. Reuben, 

VI. Alpha, 

town ; hence his name 
VII. Martin," b. C. 

VIII. Lumvn, b. C. 

IX. Hebzibah, 6 b. C. 



m., 1793, Mary Burrall, of 
He d. Sept. 4, 1794, aged 34 years, s. p. 
bap. East Windsor, Oct. 3, 1762; d. young, 
b. East Windsor, Jan. 20, 1764 ; bap. Jan. 22, 1764. 
b. East Windsor, Oct. 1, 1765 ; bap. Oct. 6, 1765. 
b. Colebrook, Sept. 21, 1767, the first child born in the 



1772. 



d. Nov., 1777. 
d. Nov., 1777. 



Elijah Rockwell 11 married, Jan. 19, 1775, Lucy Wright, born in 
Goshen, Conn., Oct. 7, 1756, daughter of Capt. John Wright. He was 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 367 

the first justice of the peace, and the life-long town clerk of Colebrook. 
She died at Colebrook, May 24, 1830, in her 74th year. He died 
August 2, 1841. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lucr, 7 b. June. 8, 1776; d. April 2, 1778. 

II Elijah, 7 1>. Nov. i), 177 ; m. Sophia Ensign, daughter of John. 

III. Lucy, 7 b. Jan. 8, 1779; m. Aaron Case of Norfolk. 

IV. Thekon, 7 b. June 5, 1782. 

V. Anne, 7 b. Oct. 9, 178:5; m. Joseph P. Hurlbut. 

VI. Betsey, 7 b. Feb. 18, 1789; ni. Dr. Luman Wakefield. 

Samuel Rockwell, 6 a physician, settled in Salisbury, Conn. ; after- 
ward removed to Sharon, where he died June 24,1836. He married 
1788, Eunice Canfield. She died and he married 
(2d) 1798, Hannah Reed. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 
I. Hepzibah, 7 m. Nathaniel 15. Gaylord. 

II. John Canfield," d. at Colebrook, unm. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 

III. Mary Ann," b. Salisbury, June 2, 1800; m. Aaron llawlev. 

IV. William, 7 grad. Yale College Law Sehool; lawyer in Brooklyn, N. Y. ; 

Judge of Superior Court of Kings county at the time of bis death : m. 
Susan Prince of Brooklyn. 

Solomon Rockwell married, July 2, 1800, Sarah McEwen, born 
March 2, 177o, daughter of Robei't and Jerusha (Doolittle) McEwen. 
She died March 15, 1837 ; he died Aug. 1, 1838. 

CHILD. 
I. Jerusha, 7 !). March 28, 1803 ; m. Theodore Hinsdale ; and (2d) John Boyd. 

Reuben Rockwell," of Colebrook, born in East Windsor Oct. 1, 
1766, married Rebecca, daughter of Col. Bezaleel Beebe of Litchfield. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julius," grad. Yale College; lawyer at Pittsfield, Mass.; representative 
and senator from Mass. in Congress; and now judge of supreme court, 
Massachusetts. 
II. Louisa, 7 m. Giles H. Bass, of Colebrook. 
III. Bezaleel Beebe, 7 of Winsted, b. Oct. 28, 1809 ; m. April 23, 1834, Caro- 
line, daughter of Col. Hosea Hinsdale. Children: 1. Elizabeth, 8 b. 
Jan. 8, 183G ; 2. Julia, 8 b. Oct. 13, 1838; 3. Caroline Rebecca, 8 b. June 
1,1840; 4. Mary Pitkin Hinsdale, 8 1>. Sept. 10, 1844; 5. John Hinsdale, 8 
b. Sept. 27, 1847 ; d. April 10, 1848 ; 6. Kate Louisa, 8 b. June 29, 1850 ; 
7. Lilian, 8 b. Feb. 22, 1854. He resides in Winsted, holds the office of 
assistant assessor of U. S. Internal Revenue. 



368 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

IV. Elizabeth, 7 living in Colebrook. 

V. Rkuben, 7 of Golebrook, m. Amelia L. Eno; representative and senator of 
Connecticut legislature, and now holds the office of collector U. S. In- 
ternal Revenue, Fourth District of Connecticut. 



Alpha Rockwell, 6 married, May 20, 1800, Rhoda Ensign, born in 

Salisbury, , 1775, daughter of John and Rhoda (Lee) Ensign. 

She died Feb. 25, 1817; he died May 31, 1818. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Edward, 7 b. Colebrook, June 30, 1801. 

II. Samuel, 7 b. Winchester, April 18, 1803. 

III. Caroline, 7 b. Dec. 27, 1804; m. William Lawrence, of Norfolk, who 

d. at Northampton, Mass., Feb. 22, 1867, s. p. 

IV. Cornelia, 7 b. March 23, 1808; m., Oct.—, 1838, Osmyn Baker, of 

Amherst, Mass., and d. Feb. 12, 1840, leaving one child, William Law- 
rence, 8 b. Oct. 5, 1839; "giad. Dartmouth College, 1858; made the 
tour of Europe, 1860 ; was commissioned second lieutenant of artillery 
in the regular army, August, 1801 ; was promoted to first lieutenant, 
November, 1861 ; was in the battles of Winchester, Port Republic, Man- 
assas Heights, Chantilly, South Mountain, and was killed at Antietam, 
Sept. 17, 1862, aged 23 years." 

V. Delia Ellen, 7 b. Jan. 16, 1811 ; m. March 28, 1838, Dea. Elliot Beards- 

ley, b. Monroe, Conn., Dec. 26, 1801, son of Elliot and Abigail (Patter- 
son) Beardsley. lie moved from South Britain to Winstcd in 1840, and 
engaged in business, in company with Theodore Hinsdale ; and after 
the death of the latter became sole owner of one of the largest manufac- 
turing establishments in the Society, and managed it with consummate 
ability during his remaining active life. Reticent and deliberate by na- 
ture and habit, he minded his own business entirely, yet had an eye on 
all that was going on around him, and participated influentially, though 
quietly, in public affairs. No man in the town was more looked to for 
advising and giving a direction to all measures for public interest ; and 
none more respected for purity of life, religious example, and earnest 
patriotism ; he was one of the first office bearers of the Second Congre- 
gational Church; a Director and President of the Winstcd Bank; a 
Representative of the town and Senator of the 15th District in the State 
Legislature, and held various other offices. The war of the rebellion 
opened near the close of his .active life ; — and no citizen of the town ex- 
ceeded him in energetic and persistent efforts to aid the Union Cause. 
A slow decay of his physical faculties, and eventually of his mental 
powers, clouded the last years of his life, which terminated Jan. 19, 

1871. Mr. Beardsley, by a former wife, (Johnson), had a daughter, 

Martha E., b. in South Britain, Feb. 13, 1856, now living. 

CHILDREN BY SECOND W r IFE. 

1. Edward Rockwell, 8 b. Jan. 10, 1839; grad. Yale College, 1859; 
m. Jan. 10, 1867, Emma Adelaide Watson, b. in New Hartford, 
Jan. 30, 1840; has twin sons, Elliot Gay, 9 and Edward Watson, 9 b. 
June 4, 1868. 







, vji cusfcfL 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 369 

2. Cornelia, 8 b. July 27, 1840; m. Oct. 23, 1867, Rev. Samuel Baker 
Forbes, b. in Westbo rough, Mass., Aug. 1, 1826, son of Nahum and 
Polly (Davis) Forbes; hegrad. Williams College, 1855 ; East Wind- 
sor Theological Seminary, 1857; licensed by Hartford Fourth As- 
sociation, 1856 ; ordained at Manchester, Conn., Oct. 20, 1857 ; dis- 
missed April, 1859 ; resides in West Winsted; his one child, Henry 
Stuart, 9 b. June 16, 1871. 

3. Sarah Hinsdale, 8 b. Jan. 9, 1842 ; in. Oct. 13, 1868, Eugene Potter; 
she d. April — , 1871, at Lexington, Mich., leaving a son, Lawrence 
William, b. April 4, 1871. 

4. Elliot, 8 b. Nov. 17, 1843 ; d. June 12, 1862. 

5. Julia Plummer, 8 b. Oct. 1, 1845 ; m. May 28, 1867, George F. Bar- 
ton ; lives at W. Winsted; has children, Elizabeth Nichols, 9 b. 
April 4, 1869, and George Elliot, 9 b. Dec. 19, 1870. 

6. Theodore Hinsdale, 8 b. April 13, 1851 ; m. June 15, 1870, Alura 
Francis Harrison, b. in New Milford, Conn., Feb. 7, 1850; has one 
daughter, Sarah Harrison, 9 b. May 11, 1871. 

VI. Rhoda, 7 b. Feb. 22, 1817; m. May 2, 1838, Rev. Clement Long, b. in Hop- 
kinton, N. H, Dec. 31, 1807, son of Samuel and Mary (Clement) Long; 
Prof, of Int. and Moral Philosophy in Wes. Res. Coll., O., 1834-1852 ; 
Prof, of Christian Theology in Auburn Theol. Sem., 1852-1854 ; Prof, 
of Int. and Moral Phil, in Dart. Coll., from 1854 till his death, at Han- 
over, N. H, Oct. 14, 1861. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Mary, 8 b. in Hudson, O., June 8, 1839. 

2. Samuel Rockwell, 8 b. H, April 25, 1841 ; d. Aug. 3, 1842. 

3. Caroline Rockwell, 8 b. IL, Oct. 24, 1844. 

4. Julia Russell, 8 b. H., April 6, 1851. 

5. Cornelia Baker, 8 b. in Auburn, N. Y., Dec. 5, 1853. 

Martin Rockwell, of Colebrook, married (1st), Mary (Burrall) 
Rockwell, widow of his brother, Timothy Rockwell, deceased, and by her 
had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Eliza," who m. Rev. Ralph Emerson, D. D. 

II. Timothy, 7 who lived in Winsted until 1827, and thence removed toPaines- 
ville, 0., where he still resides. He m. Helen Maria, 

daughter of Seth Marshall, I^sq. 

III. Mary, 7 living (1872) in Colebrook. 

IV. Sdsan, 7 m. Rev. George E. Pierce, D. D., minister at Har- 

winton, Conn., and afterwards President of Western Reserve College, 
Hudson, O. 
V. William, 7 m. Maria Roberts; d. at Honesdale, Penn. 
VI. Charles, 7 grad. Yale College; Chaplain U. S. Navy; clergyman. 
VII. Charlotte," living (1872) in Colebrook. 

He married (2d), Lucy (Beebe) Robins, who survived him ; he died 
Dec. 8, 1851. 

Theron Rockwell, 7 married, September 6, 1814, Clarissa Treat, 
born in Hartland, Conn., September 6, 1788, daughter of John Treat. 
They settled in Colebrook, where he died January 30, 1848. 
47 



370 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 

I. James Sidnet, 8 b. Oct. 2, 1817; m. Nov. 11, 1844, Catharine A. Corley ; 

lives in Brooklyn, N. Y. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Clara, 9 b. 1847 ; d. 1851. 

2. Fanny, 9 b. April 17, 1850; m. Nov. 16, 1870, James Dunham Carhart. 

II. Henry Edwards, 8 b. Feb. 12, 1824; d. May 20, 1825. 

III. John Treat, 8 b. Jan. 21, 1827. 

IV. Annie Clarissa, 8 b. Sept. 29, 1832; in. Sept. 28, 1854, Frederick Michael 

Shepard, b. in Norfolk, Sept. 24, 1827 ; lives in the city of New York. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Annie Rockwell, 9 b. June 7, 1856. 

2. Frederick Michael, 9 b. June 8, 1858. 

3. Clara Margaret, 9 b. Oct. 12, 1862. 

4. Joseph Minot, 9 b. Aug. 31, 1864. 

5. John Andrus, 9 b. March 15, 1869. 

Edward Rockwell, 7 graduated at Yale College in 1821 ; admitted 
to the bar at New Haven in 1825 ; removed to Ohio, and was Secretary 
of Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad Company till 1867, when he re- 
signed and moved to New York. He married Matilda du Plessis Salter, 
of New Haven. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sarah, 8 b. m. John M. Isaacs, Cleveland, O. 

II. Matilda, 8 . b. m. George E. Kent, N. Y. 

TTT. Cleveland, 8 b. Engineer U. S. Navy. 

IV. Edward, 8 b. d. young. 

Samuel Rockwell 7 graduated at Yale College in 1825 ; admitted 
to the ministry in 1828; ordained pastor at Plainfield, April 11, 1832; 
dismissed April — , 1841 ; installed pastor of South Church, New 
Britain, January 4, 1843 ; resigned his pastorate June 20, 1858 ; elected 
Representative to the Legislature of Connecticut in 1862 and 1869, and 
Senator in 1865; Judge of Probate, Berlin District, since July 4, 1864; 
Treasurer of Savings Bank of New Britain, from its incorporation in 
1862. He married, June 6, 1833, Julia Ann Plummer, who died April 
— , 1838 ; and he married (2d) May 5, 1840, Elizabeth Eaton, of Plain- 
field. She died, and he married (3d), July 29, 1844, Mrs. Charlotte 
(North) Stanley. 

CHILD BY FIRST WIFE. 

I. George Plummer, 8 b. May 9, 1834. 

CHILD BY SECOND WIFE. 

II. Elizabeth Eaton, 8 b. April 9, 1843; d. March 11, 1866. 

John Treat Rockwell, 8 married, December 14, 1853, Harriette Ann 
Burt, born April 19, 1830, daughter of Miles C. and Ann (Mallory) 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 371 

Burt. She died Oct. 24, 1855 ; and he married (2d), Feb. 26, 1857, 
Mary Ann Hawley, born in Sharon, Conn., June 22, 1827, daughter of 
Aaron and Mary Ann (Rockwell) Hawley ; she died June 5, 1859, and 
he married (3d), April 18, 1861, Jane Elizabeth Arcularius, born in New 
York, May 14, 1828, daughter of Andrew Merrill and Eliza Lucretia 
(Saltonstall) Arcularius. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Annie Mallort, 9 b. March 14, 1855. 
II. Theron, 9 b. July 18, 1863. 

III. Eliza Saltonstall, 9 b. Jan. 2, 1867. 

IV. James Sidney, 9 b. July 18, 1868. 

Ezra Rockwell, this year bought and occupied the house on South 
street, near Torringford line, previously owned by Jehiel and Mabel 
Burr, which he sold in 1803. He lived in the town some years later. 

Jacob Chamberlin, from Colebrook, this year bought the Israel 
Crissey farm, adjoining Colebrook line, and now a part of the William E. 
Cowles farm, which he occupied until 1805, and then returned to Cole- 
brook. 

Aaron Loomis owned and occupied land on South street, near Tor- 
rington line, from 1801 to 1806, or later. He was b. May 25, 1766, son 
of Ephraim and Jane (Campbell) Loomis. He m. Feb. 12, 1789, Anne 
Drake, of Windsor. Their children were probably b. in Torrington. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Aaron, b. May 16, 1790. 

II. Jane, b. March 11, 1792. 

III. Laura, b. Feb. 17, 1794; m. Jan. 5, 1809, Erastus Hodges. 

IV. Annes, b. June 23, 1797. 

V. Alvan, b. Dec. 22, 1800. [Loomis Genealogy, />. 111.] 

1802. 
Col. Hosea Hinsdale," [see Genealogy under 1799,] from Berlin, 
came to Winsted in the spring of this year, and resided in the gambrel- 
roofed house that stood on the site of Moses Camp's present dwelling. 
He was a tanner by trade, and had made arrangements to begin the world 
in Western New York ; but the discovery at that time made, of the tan- 
ning properties of hemlock bark, changed his plans, and he came here to 
avail himself of the abundance of this material found in our forests. In 
company with his brother in-law, Major James Shepard, afterwards of 
Norfolk, he built the tannery at the corner of Spencer and Hinsdale 
streets, the last vestiges of which have this year (1871) been obliterated, 
by the excavation of Mr. J. T. Rockwell's skating pond, where he did a 
leading business for some thirty years. In 1810, Major Shepard with- 



372 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

drew from the concern, and it was conducted solely by Col. Hinsdale 
until about 1 845. 

Culonel Hinsdale, in addition to the tanning business, was largely 
engaged in public affairs, " swinging around the circle " of town offices, 
and trying his hand as grand juror, constable, selectman, assessor, justice 
of the pi ace, and representative, and of military affairs from private to 
colonel of cavalry. He was also for several years a deputy, under 
Sheriff Landon, who prided himself on his selection of a staff of not only 
able but portly and fine looking assistants, thereby sustaining the dignity 
of the county magistracy. He closed his public life with the presidency 
of the Litchfield County Temperance Society, which he filled with 
punctuality and ardent zeal for seven or eight years. 

His social qualities were of a high order. His acquaintance with men 
of the county and state was extensive, and his memory of events accurate 
in a remarkable degree. At ninety he could recall an acquaintance or 
event of early days with the readiness of a young man. Like most of 
his neighbors he was a reading man, well posted in all current events. 
In person and manner dignified, fluent and attractive in conversation; he 
was the chronicler and patriarch of the village, the last of the generation 
of men who laid the foundations and controlled the destinies of our com- 
munity. He married, March 2, 1798, Elizabeth Shepard, born at Hart- 
land, September 2, 1777, daughter of Eldad and Rebecca (Seymour) 
Shepard. She died January 25, 1861. He died October 21, 18G6. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Elizabeth, 7 b. December 17, 1798; d. December 4, 1804. 

II. Harriet, 7 b. September 25, 1801 ; d. December 10, 1804. 

III. Julia, 7 b. November 14, 1805. 

IV. Henry, 7 b. August 31, 1807. 

V. Caroline, 7 b. July 19, 1811; m. April 23, 1835, Bezaleel Beebe 
Rockwell. 

VI. Harriet, 7 b. December 6, 1813; d. October 7, 1816. 

VII. John, 7 b. May 10, 1817. 

Henry Hinsdale, 7 married October 13, 1834, Jane Coe, born 
August 14, 1812, daughter of Jonathan Coe. She died October 5, 
1839 ; he died October 14, 1846. 

CHILD. 
I. Harriet Amelia, 8 b. October 22, 1835 ; d. June 1, 1842. 

John Hinsdale, 7 married August 31, 1841, Amanda Malvina Alvord, 
born August 20, 1821, daughter of Deacon James H. Alvord. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Mart Elizabeth, 8 b. March 18, 1848; m. June 19, 1867, Robert R. 
Noble, b. September 27, 1840; had, 1. Susie Alvord, 9 b. April 9, 1868; 
d. March 1, 1869; 2. twins, John Hinsdale and Robert Chambcrlin, b. 
Oct. 3, 1872. 
II. John Alvord, 8 b. October 22, 1858. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 373 

Colonel James Shepard from New Hartford, came to Winsted 
with, or soon after, Colonel Hinsdale, his brother-in-law, and in 1803 
built the house at the parting of Main and Spencer streets, afterwards 
the life-long homestead of Colonel Hinsdale, with whom he was associ- 
ated in the tanning business until 1810, when, in company with Asahel 
Miller, he built the original tannery on the site of the present establish- 
ment of George Dudley & Son. 

In 1815 he removed to Norfolk, where he resumed the tanning busi- 
ness for a few years, and afterwards became a highly respected tavern 
keeper and stage owner. He married Abigail Andrus, and had 

CHILDREN. 

I. John Andrus, b. July 15, 1802. 
II. Laura Seymour, b. March 19, 1804. 

III. James Hutchins, b. August 11, 1806. 

IV. Jerusha Treat, b. September 27, 1808; m. A. E. Dennis. 

V. Samuel, b. December 10, 1812; m. — Dennis; kept the 

Beardsley House for several years ; d. Norfolk, January 14, 1872. 

Jesse Clark became a resident of Winchester this year. He owned 
and lived until 1837, on the farm on Wallen's Hill, which he then sold 
to Elisha Kilbourn, and moved into Barkhamsted, where he died 
December 17, 1853, aged 76. His wife died December 11, 1849, aged 
72. His parents were Paul Clark, born August 29, 1750 ; died March 
1, 1804, and Sarah Wheeler, horn March 28, 1754; died August 14, 
1829. 

He married, Novembei 26, 1801, Lydia, daughter of Elisha and 
Esther Mallory. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Nathan Wheeler, b. April 25, 1803. 

II. Orlando Mallort, b. March 11, 1805; d. November 7, 1807. 

III. Esther, b. March 9, 1807. 

IV. Amasa, b. March 24, 1809; d. December 8, 1809. 
V. Zayda, b. October 18, 1810. 

VI. Betsey, b. December 24, 1812; m. October 5, 1848, George 

E. Shelton ; d. March 17, 1850. 
VII. Sarah Ann, b. April 8, 1815 ; d. October 16, 1817. 

VIII. Orlando, b. December 25, 1820. 

IX. John Benjamin, b. April 20, 1820; d. March 20, 1842. 

Nathan Wheeler Clark, oldest child of Jesse and Lydia, a resi- 
dent of the town from birth, resides on Wallen's Hill, near his father's 
old residence. He married, June 5, 1830, Rebecca Cordelia Dickinson, 
born November 7, 1805. 

children. 

I. Lucius Wadswortii, b. September 19, 1831. 

II. John Benjamin, b. April 14, 1834. 



374 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

III. Emma Harriet, b. March 22, 1836. 

IV. Burton Mallort, b. October 11, 1838; d. December 7, 1840. 
V. Mary Betsey, b. December 2, 1840. 

Orlando Clark, eighth child of Jesse and Lydia, removed with his 
father to Barkhamsted, where he still resides. He married, November 
30, 1852, Melissa .Race, born June 25, 1821. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Albert Mallory, b. October 12, 1843. 
II. Sarah Ann, b. December 21, 1844. 

III. George Orlando, b. August 17, 1848. 

IV. Georgiana Melissa, b. August 17, 1848. 

V. Mii.es Belden, b. July 31, 1851 ; d. September 5, 1853 

Salmon Burr from Torrington, this year came to Winsted, where he 
built and occupied the brick dwelling on the west side of South street, 
now owned by Hilamon Fyler, until his death, December 19, 1851, at the 
age of 77 ; a man of retiring manner and sterling worth. He married 
Mary Ensign, born September 8, 1776; died December 29, 1846. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Maria, b. February 17, 1799; m. November 29, 1820, Ansel Shattuck ; 
d. July 29, 1840. 
II. Rufus, b. December 17, 1800 ; m. May 10, 1828, , daughter of 

Barzillai Hudson of Tor. 

III. Samuel, b. September 22, 1802; m. February 22, 1831, Louisa Flowers. 

IV. Wilson, b. April 11, 1804 ; m. May 5, 1829, Morinda Cadwell., 

V. Mary, b. June 12, 1806 ; m. May 11, 1827, Porter Gibbs ; d. November 

23, 1835. 
VI. Rhoda, b. January 11, 1808; m. George Ransom. 
VII. Sarah, b. March 2, 1810 ; m. February 22, 1831, Anson II. Stuart. 

VIII. Willard, b. February 8, 1812; m. September 1, 1843, Sarah, daughter 
of George Burr. 
IX. Huldah, b. May 21, 1814 ; m. Octobers, 1834, Luman Smith. 
X. Harmon Ensign, b. November 13, 1818 ; m. May 1, 1849, Ann Squire. 
XI. Charlotte, b. October 3, 1820 ; m. June 29, 1839, Erasmus N. Ransom. 

Jacob Seymour, a carpenter and joiner, this year bought the land 
around the new meeting house, now constituting the larger portion of 
the east village, and lived in a dwelling that stood on the site of Normand 
Adams' store. He sold out his purchase in a few years, and subse- 
quently lived in the old hemlock building then standing at the north 
(■(iincr of Hinsdale and North Main streets. He left the town about 
1810. The first gravestone in the central burying ground was erected 
by him over the remains of a deceased child. 

John Seymour, brother of Jacob, also lived in the Society for a few 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 375 

years at this period, and became part owner of the east village 
property. 

John Phillips, an iron refiner, of Welsh extraction, came into the 
employ of the Rockwell Brothers this year, or earlier, and lived in the 
rear wing of the house on Lake street, adjoining the carriage entrance to 
Mrs. J. R. Boyd's premises. He had a son, William, who lived in 
the same dwelling until his death, February 26, 1817, leaving a son, 
William S., born December 22, 181G, who lived in this Society from 
1846 to the time of his death, aged 41 years. He was trained to business 
in Sandisfield, Mass., where his widowed mother resided until her death, 
and came here as a partner-in-trade with his brother-in-law, David A. 
Rood, now of Hartford. He built the house now occupied by his widow, 
at the head of Spring street, where he died of dysentery, August 19, 
1860. He was a retiring, exemplary, kind-hearted, Christian man i 
highly esteemed, and sincerely lamented. He married dune 10, 1844, 
Frances Slocuin Hamilton, born in Tolland, Mass., February 2, 1822, 
daughter of Henry and Maria (Slocum) Hamilton. She in died Otis 
Mass., May 13, 18-15 (leaving a son, William Henry, born March 30, 
1845, who died January 14, 1846). He married (2d) October 18, 1847, 
Harriette J. Rood; she died Winsted, July 31, 1848, aged 23 years, s. p., 
and he married (3d) March 18, 1850, Ellen Amanda Griswold, daughter 
of Roswell and Jerusha (Grant) Griswold. 

CHILDKEN. 

I. William Banistlk, b. February 16, 1853. 
II. Mary Louise, b. April 29, 1857. 

The other children of William Phillips were Aurelia, who died unmar- 
ried, Semantha, born February 11, 1805, now living in Winsted 
unmarried, Emeline, wife and widow of Lemuel K. Strickland, Esq., 
late of Sandisfield, deceased, and Clarissa, wife of Carlton Hayden. 

Thomas R. Bull is on the list of this year. He worked with his 
brother, Merritt Bull, in a blacksmith shop, afterwards burned down, 
that stood near the premises of G. W. Gaston on Main street. He 
afterwards moved to Colebrook, from whence he returned in 1810, and 
bought the old Jenkins & Boyd Scythe Works, and lived in the house on 
the top of the knoll east of the parsonage house of Mr. Beach. In 1816 
he bought an interest in the Cook forge, which proved an unfortunate 
investment, bringing him to poverty, in spite of his untiring industry and 
frugal habits. He died November 6, 1829, aged 49. 

He married, April 3, 1806, Diantha, daughter of Ebenezer Rowley, by 
whom he had 



376 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

CHILDREN. 

I. Celestia, a deaf mute, who m. Isaac Davis. 

II. Mary, m. Lucius Phelps. 

III. Clorinda, ra. Lemuel Munson 

IV. Jane, m. James Gilman. 
V. Catharine M., m. — Clapp. 

VI. Thomas. 

Timothy Persons came into the town this year, and continued a 
resident until about 1807, when he moved to Colebrook river, where he 
carried on a tannery until his death, a hard-working, honest man. He 
married Lucy Davis of Winsted. 

Alpheus Persons, brother of Timothy, came here about the same 
time with his brother, and left the town with him, moving to North 
Colebrook, and carrying on a tannery there during his remaining life. 
He died in August, 1858, aged 72. His wife died in 1821, aged 32. 

He married in 1810, Sally Davis, sister of Lucy aforesaid. Their son, 
Wing Persons, came to Winsted in 1851, and has since resided here, 
living on the north side of Hinsdale street, adjoining the graded school 
building. He married, in August, 1843, Flavilla, daughter of Travis 
Phillips of Colebrook. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Benjamin Franklin, b. January 8, 1844. 

2. Grace, b. July 6, 1851. 

3. Charles, b. June, 1865. 



1803. 

With the year 1803 the personal reminiscences of the compiler begin. 
The Green Woods turnpike then, as now, ran along the easterly and 
northerly border of Mad River, from Coe street to Chestnut street. The 
green, or east village park, and the road northward, now constituting 
North Main street, had been recently laid out, and was cleared in its 
whole extent. At the south end of the park was a gravel knoll of eight 
or ten feet elevation, and to the west of it, about opposite Woodruffs 
confectionery store, was a sink hole or frog pond, depressed to the level 
of the river channel, which was soon after partially filled with flood-wood 
logs from the river, which were covered over at successive " spells " by 
plowing the knoll and spreading the gravel on them, until the depression 
and elevation were graded to one level. 

The level land north of the lake stream, through which Meadow street 
now runs, was an unbroken forest ; so also was the westerly and southerly 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 377 

border of Mad River from near Lake street to Still River, the meadow 
land south of the east village being an impenetrable morass covered with 
timber, where the flood-wood of Mad River had lodged and accumulated 
to such a degree that in time of winter and spring floods the road above 
the creek bridge would be submerged and covered by broken ice, not 
unfrequently to a depth of six feet, rendering it impassable until the 
water subsided, and the cakes of ice could be removed from the road 
path. The hill lands, encircled on three sides by Main and North 
Main streets, and bordering Hinsdale street, were an unbroken forest, 
save at points where houses had been erected. A part of the flat had 
been cleared, but the aboriginal stumps remained, only partially decayed. 

On Lake street stood nearest the lake outlet the one and a half story 
house built by David Austin, Jr., and then occupied by Solomon Rockwell 
and his recently married wife. Next northerly on the east side of the 
street was the two-story lean-to house built by Deacon David Austin and 
then occupied by the miller and one or two other families. Next northerly 
stood the Daniel Wi'cox house, immediately west of which Rockwell 
street now runs. The Lake street road then ran directly down the hill in 
front of this house, and has since been swung around to the north for ease 
of grade. 

The lake stream was then conducted by a canal easterly across the 
street opposite the lean-to house and then on the east border, to near the 
Wilcox house where it again crossed back, and poured its waters on the 
wheels of the old Austin Mill, which stood where the road now runs, a 
little below the Henry Spring Company's works. On the westerly side 
of the road, immediately below the first canal crossing, stood a blacksmith 
shop and dish mill, and below the corn mill, a clothit r's shop, fulling mill 
and carding mill. A dwelling house, soon after this period burned down, 
stood below and adjoining the clothier's shop. There was another dish 
mill where the Beard>ley company's grinding shop now stands. Below 
this stood the old original forge where the Winsted Company's grinding 
works now stand, and " the middle forge " then recently erected by the 
Rockwells and now rebuilt and owned by Timothy Hulbert. Around 
these forges were three tenements for workmen, and two others stood on 
Lake street. 

On the depot grounds of the Connecticut Western Railroad Company 
stood the oldest store building within the borough limits, built before 1800 
by Thomas Spencer, Jr., and Hewitt Hills. Below the mi : ; forge 
stood a saw mill, on the ,-ite of which "the lower forge " was built a few 
years after by the Rockwell Brothers. On the next privilege stood the 
scythe works of Meritt Bull, this year comple'ed, where the stone shop of 
the Winsted Hoe Co., adjoining Meadow Street bridge, now stands. Be- 
low this on the northerly side of Lake street, immediately east of Meadow 
48 



378 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

street, was James Boyd's scythe works ; and nearly opposite tlieni stood 
and now stands the gambrel-roofed store-building, that year erected by 
Mr. Kirkuni. 

On the turnpike, or Main street, there stood an old house on the site 
of George Dudley's residence, occupied by David West. The next house 
was erected and afterwards occupied during his life by James Boyd, and 
now owned by John T. Rockwell. The next house was built in 1802 by 
Deacon Alpha Rockwell on the site of the Beardsley House. The Lyman 
& Lewis store-building stood on the site of Moses Camp's dwelling until 
taken down and re-erected about 1842 on Prospect street and now owned 
by Benjamin Lawrence. On the south corner of Main and Lake streets 
stood the small gambrel-roofed store buiit two years earlier by Bissell 
Hinsdale. Next south of this stood, and still stands, the old Higby tavern ; 
and beyond this, on the site of Weed's block, the gambrel-roofed Kirkum 
dwelling. From this point to the new meeting-house in the east village, 
not a single building had been erected on either side of the road, except 
the store now occupied by T. Baird. There had been a log house on the 
flat and another on High Street hill, but both had disappeared. 

In the East Village the original hotel building had been raised and 
covered, and a small dwelling or shop, stood on or near the Normand 
Adams store site, and a coarse hemlock covered dwelling, built by one of 
the Potters, stood behind the ancient elm tree at the corner of North Main 
and Hinsdale streets. There was a small opening in the woods through 
which Hinsdale street ran, near the residence of John G. Wetmore, on 
which stood a small log-house occupied by a shoemaker named Henry 
Sanford. Around the Doolittle mill, on the east wing of the clock-factory 
dam, stood the Jesse Doolittle dwelling, afterwards owned by Asaph 
Pease, and now removed, nearly in front of the new James G. Woodruff 
house, on the west side of the North Main Street road, as it then ran. 
North of this, on the same side of the road, stood a small house occupied 
by the miller; and still further north another small house, which was 
afterwards removed to the top of the high knoll, beneath which it before 
stood. Opposite this house, on the east side of the street, stood, and 
still stands, the double house of Jenkins & Boyd, afterwards the parsonage 
house of the late Rev. James Beach, in which the compiler was born. 

The district school-house of the West District was a building of dubious 
age and color on the site of the long one-story school-house standing west 
of the newly erected Graded school edifice. The Coe Street road, Spen- 
cer Street road, and Hinsdale Street road concentrated at that point ; and 
it was reached from Lake street by way of the new turnpike. 

On the now discontinued road on the east side of Still River stood, and 
now stands, in a ruinous condition, the Nathan Wheeler house, with a 
floating foot bridge crossing the river, and two other houses near the 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 379 

Turnpike bridge, which have since disappeared. The Widow Hall house 
at the parting of the turnpike and the Torringford road, had been recently 
built for a tavern by Benjamin Wheeler, who kept the only post-office in 
the town. 

The elms around the East Village Park were set out this year and were 
probably the first transplanted shade trees in the society, with the excep- 
tion of an occasional willow. Most unfortunately for New England, the 
spiky Lombardy poplar was first imported about this period, and gained 
a most unaccountable popularity. Its easy propagation by slips, of rapid 
growth, and its singular though graceless form, gave to it almost universal 
favor. It had a run of a whole generation to the almost entire exclusion 
of our beautiful native shade trees. Fortunate indeed were the older 
villages which had reared their wide branching, majestic elms before this 
graceless and short-lived tree gained a footing among us. 

On the subsidence of the Lombardy poplar mania, the rock-maple 
found general favor by reason of its cleanliness and depth of shade, 
rather than the grace and majesty of its matured form. The elm, 
though somewhat later in its introduction, has proved itself a more rapid 
grower and a more hardy tree. None of ours away from the East Park 
have yet attained the maturity of size which developes their full grace 
and majesty ; jet the large number now in process of healthy growth, 
give assured promise of a-beautit'ul town in the future, in spite of its ill 
proportioned and comfortless residences. 

For the edification of the antiquary of nineteen hundred and three, — 
in the event of a copy of these annals reaching his hands — we here note 
the date of transplantation of some of the trees now standing on Main 
and Lake streets, as follows : 

The elms around the East village Park, as already stated, in 1803 ; — 
and those in the vicinity on Main street perhaps a year later ; — the 
maples around the Solomon Rockwell place on Lake street, and in front 
of the Congregational Church, about 1818. The elms in front of the E. 
S. Woodford place about 1825, and those fronting Mo-es Camp's place 
about 1 830 ; those in front of the Winsted Savings Bank and the S. W. 
Coe store, in 1832. 

Of the seedling elms along the bank of Mad River, which may be 
known by their irregular positions, probably not one had sprung up be- 
fore the opening of the Green Woods turnpike, in 1790. 

In recalling Winsted as it was in its infancy, memories of the West 
village school house and its occupants crowd upon us. It was there that 
we this year began to ascend the hill of science, seated on one of the slab 
benches, supported by four rough-hewn legs, — without backs, — and a 
little too high for our feet to touch the floor. The building was erected in 



380 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

the last century, — how early no one now living can tell, and no record in- 
forms. It was of mature age, — had once been painted red, but then had 
a dirty, brindle look, neither venerable nor picturesque. It had a large 
stone fire-place at the north end, with the entry from the outer doors on 
one side and " the dungeon," — a dark closet, — on the other. 

A smaller fire place and chimney of later construction stood at the 
south end. Writing desks, fronting inwards, stood near the east and west 
walls. In front of the.-e were the hemlock slabs in two tiers for torment- 
ing the young children, — and teaching them at the outset, the rugged- 
ness of the path of learning they were to ascend. The teacher's table, a 
small platform of boards, fastened on top of an over-grown saw-horse, and 
a splint bottom chair, were the only other articles of furniture or adorn- 
ment, save that sundry hieroglyphics and portraits were frescoed on the 
walls, by using the end of a tallow dip for a pencil or brush, and bringing 
out the figures in relief by the vigorous application of a black felt hat. 
New inscriptions and new pictures would from time to time appear, as 
some new genius in the school developed his talents. 

In the rear of the school house ran a little brook, well stocked with 
striped dace, on whom the sporting boys tried their first experiments with 
a crooked pin attached to a linen thread, and baited with a grub. 

It is hard to realize, that before there were half a dozen dwellings 
- along the Mad River, this school house was filled to overflowing with 
strapping boys and girls from the surrounding hills. There were the 
Spencers, the Loomises, the Cooks, the Douglasses, the Harts, the Wal- 
ters, Millers, Burtons, Osborns, Apleys, Butrixes, and Wrights, from 
Spencer street ; the Sweets, Coes, Whitings, Hoskins, and Russells, 
from Coe street; the Chases, Holmeses, Elwells, DeWolfs, Westlakes, 
Phillipses, Lemleys, Munsons, and Davises, from the upper part of Lake 
street. 

The butternut coats of the larger boys were all too small of girth to 
button round their bodies, and leather straps, from three to six inches 
long, with button holes at each end, were used to hold them together. 
High peaked, woolen caps of mitre shape, made of alternate perpendicu-. 
lar stripes of " white, red, and blue," or other fancy colors, were in gen- 
eral vogue for winter wear. Long leggins, of mixed sheep's wool, tied 
close to the cowskin shoes with tow-strings, were chiefly used instead of 
boot-legs to keep out the snow from the feet. The girls had winter 
dresses of cam-wood colored cloth, or red flannel, for winter wear, and 
calico or home-made gingham petticoats and short gowns for summer, with 
pockets, fastened outside, around the waist. 

There were no puny children in those days. The big boys were 
bullies, and the small ones game cocks. One strapping girl I remember 
who could flax out any boy in school. She was called " Bonaparte's 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 3gl 

wife." There was a big boy, Miles Munson by name, who was proud of 
his strength and prowess, and had curious ways of showing himself off to 
the smaller boys. One day he laid himself down on the descending 
ground between a large, half rotten saw-mill log and the brook, and told 
the boys they might roll the log over him, — not dreaming that the little 
imps could move it. They laid hold of the log with a will, and it yielded 
to their united strength. Before Miles could get out of the way it had 
flattened him down and gone over him, into the brook. Strange to say, 
it didn't kill him, nor break his bones. It was pitiable and laughable to 
see the poor fellow gather up his scattered senses and limbs, and 
straighten himself up ; — and to hear him with mouth full of dirt, stream- 
ing eyes and flattened drooling nose, pour forth, with Yankee drawl, his 
emphatic " Gaul darn you, boys ! what on airlh did you du that for? " 

Snow-balling was a science in those days; and so was sliding down the 
hill above the school house. A dozen boys would come down on their 
sleds at locomotive speed. Another dozen would form a gauntlet near 
the foot of the hill, with each a pole to place before the sled runners, 
and overturn the rider. The boy who could run the whole gauntlet, 
right side up, was a trump. One of the indoor games was gambling for 
pins. Two boys would each place a pin parallel to that of his opponent 
on the crown of a hat. One would strike the side of the hat with his 
hand so as to jostle the pins, and then the other would follow, until one 
of them had thrown one of the pins across the other, when the two 
became his, and then a new stake commenced. The most successful 
gamblers in this line were distinguished by the long rows of pins dis- 
played on their coats sleeves. This game gave rise to a brisk manufac- 
ture of pin-boxes, by pealing the bark from an elder stick, punching 
out the pith, fitting a plug into one end and a stopper at the other. The 
price of these varied from two to six pins, according to quality. 

The school-masters and "school-marms" of this model school come up 
before us. The good Deacon Lorrin Loomis, lately gone to heaven at 
nearly a hundred years old, first appears on the vista of memory, — a kind, 
loving, cheerful-spirited man, — who impressed his Christ-like character on 
more of the children of Winchester than any other, — priest or layman. 
Then comes the hated vision of Doctor Pratt, — a tyrant of the hyena 
sort, who brought in his whips from the woods by the armful, — ran them 
through the hot embers to make them tough and supple, and was never 
without one in his hand. His amateur diversion was to switch the small 
boys into a bolt upright position on their slabs, and to wallop the bigger 
ones with or without cause, until his savage nature was soothed into com- 
placency. The classes were marshaled for reading or spelling with the 
whip. Its hissing sound, as he swung it around his head at the door of 
the school house, was the signal to come in from play ; and woe to the 



382 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

urchin who was among the last half of the in-gathering procession. A 
worthy resident of the Western Reserve, who went from this seminary 
with his parents to the West, remarked in mature life that he was at 
peace with all the world except Dr. Pratt ; and that if he should ever see 
him again he would thrash him if he died for it. 

Next come the two Haydens, Seth and Moses. Seth was a mild, 
kind-hearted man, who ruled by love more effectually than any tyrant 
of the rod could do by force. 

Moses was a crack teacher, a good disciplinarian, and skilled in show- 
ing off his school to the visitors at the end of his term. We remember 
on one of these occasions his calling up his youngest geography class, 
remarking that time would only permit of his asking each of them a 
single question. He then began with the question, " What is geography ?" 
to the first ; to the second, " How is the earth divided ?" ; to the third, 
" What portion of the earth is land ?" and so on. The third question 
had heen previously given out to our sister, and she had learned to 
answer, " About three fists (fifths) of the whole," and this was her whole 
stock of geographical knowledge. Each of the other members of the 
class had been drilled in the same way to one question and answer, and 
knew nothing more of the science. The pitiful farce worked to a charm, 
and added a new laurel to the brow of the pedagogue. 

Giles Russell was a flippant, sarcastic teacher, who could work con- 
siderable learning into a blockhead in the course of a winter. 

Our first teacher in this school wore a female garb, but possessed mas- 
culine powers. Miss Roxy F was the name of this semiramis. She 

was large-boned, corpulent, loud and sharp-voiced, choleric, and at the 
meridian of single blessedness. She had a ferule that she carried in her 
capacious pocket, something like a watchman's billy, only that it had 
a round head two and a half inches in diameter, beveled down on one 
side, so as to make a flat surface, fitting the palm of an urchin's hand. 
This was freely applied, secundum artem, to the hands of delinquents 
within her reach, and thrown with unerring aim at any disorderly hoy in 
a distant part of the room, who brought it back for application to his own 
hand. Miss F. had her predilections and antipathies. She hated the 
itch, and rapturously kissed the children that came to school with a strong 
smell of brimstone. 

In striking contrast with this virago was Miss Sally Sherman, after- 
wards wife of Joseph Miller, Esq., a young lady of exquisite refinement 
and cultivated intellect, adorned with grace of manner and a loving 
heart. No unkind word ever escaped her lips. If she ever used a 
ferule, it was so mildly applied as to give no pain, and to escape remem- 
brance. The tired and sleepy child on the hemlock slabs, instead of 
having its ears cuffed for falling to the floor in pure exhaustion, was 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 383 

gently laid on a blanket in the center of the room and allowed to sleep 
away its fatigue and petulance. It was not uncommon for half a dozen 
of these wearied sleepers to occupy the blanket during a warm afternoon. 

Other teachers, male and female, might be named — some of them love- 
able and some of them hateful — but the specimens given must suffice. 
The punishments of those clays inflicted on such of the children as 
inherited dispositions too sprightly for puritanic decorum were various. 
The birch was in use to some extent, but the beech was the more favored 
implement, as being tougher and more durable. The " dungeon " in the 
old school house was a dark, unwholesome cell, un ventilated and un- 
lighted. It was the imaginary habitation of she bears, snakes, and 
vermin, and cruel was the shock to children of sensitive natures con- 
signed to its darkness. Various amateur punishments would be intro- 
duced by different teachers. One master would make the delinquents 
crawl under and between the cross legs of the school table ; another 
would fasten a split stick to their tongues ; another would make them 
stoop over with unbent knees, and place the forefinger of the right hand 
on a nail head in the floor. 

The saturnian " school marms " were generally powerful with the 
ferule, and effective in the cuffing of ears, and some of them in pulling 
hair. Fine sewing, working muslin, and especially making " samplers " 
of block lettering, were an iinjiortant part of the teaching of the female 
scholars in the summer months. 

The catechism tasks, and the reading of the New Testament as a 
school book, in all the drawling tones and halting utterances of unsophis- 
ticated Yankee children, were ill calculated to impress the mind with a 
favorable view of Calvinistic doctrines, or of the divine teachings of the 
Saviour. 

1803. 

Samuel and Luther Hoapley (brothers) from Waterbury, became 
residents of the town during this or the preceding year. The Doolittle 
mill had been swept away previously, and they became the owners of the 
dam, water privilege, and the land adjoining on both sides of the river. 
They built a saw mill on the old corn mill site, and soon after erected 
a new grist mill on the east side of the stream, on the site of the brick 
clock factory, recently burned down. They also built for the town the 
wooden bridge crossing the chasm where the stone arched-bridge has 
been, within a few years, erected. The original bridge crossed the river 
above the dam, nearly opposite the Rollin L. Beecher's late residence, 
and was abandoned on the erection of the wooden bridge before 
mentioned. About 1807 they erected a small wooden clock factory 
adjoining the east wing of the bridge on the south side of the road, in 
which they did a large and prosperous business in connection with Riley 
Whiting, who married their sister. 



384 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

They were for ten years prominent and highly esteemed business men, 
and by their ingenuity and enterprise contributed largely to the growth 
and prosperity of the village.* 

Samuel Hoadley retired from business on his appointment as 
Major of Volunteers in the war of 1812.- He was promoted to a 
colonelcy, and served through the war, mainly at New London. lie 
continued his residence in Winsted until his removal to Ohio about 
1825. He built and resided in the two story house west of and nearly 
opposite the stone bridge. He married, about 1801, Content Barnes, 
from near New Haven. 

«^ CHILDREN. 
I. Sarah Anna, b. January 1,1802; m. Bennett Blakcslee of Medina, 

Ohio. 
II. Amelia, b. October 25, 1803; m. Dr. Doming of Ashland, O., 

and (2d) — Du Bois. 

III. Harriet, b. August 6, 1805; d. November 27, 1817. 

IV. Sophronia, b. May 2, 1808 ; m. Wm. P. McCrary of Paris, O. 
V. Samuel Buckley, b. April 20, 1810 ; m. Jemima Hiekox. 

VI. Juliette, b. March 3, 1812. 

VII. Charlotte, b. 

VIII. Lucius, (twin). 

IX. Lucien, (twin). 

X. Charles, died when six years old. 

Luther Hoadley, son of Lemuel and brother of Samuel, built and 
lived in the first house south of the Wallen's Hill road, near the clock 
factory. In 1813 he went to New London as captain of drafted militia, 
and died there Sept. 8, 1813, aged 31 years. He married, in 1810, Sophia 
Dexter of Windsor. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Sophia Dexter, b. Feb. 1, 1812; m., at Harwinton, Cone, of Pe- 
oria, Bl. 
II. Luther J., b. March 6, 1814; after his father's decease, in. (1st), at 
Harwinton, Jane, daughter of Truman Kellogg, Esq.; (2d), Hannah 
Wood ; (3d), Hannah Ahby Wood. He settled at Brownsville, Nebraska. 

* They were sons of Lemuel and Urania (Mallory) Hoadley, whose children were 
as follows : — 

I. Mary, m. Asahel Osborne, Esq., of Columbia, Lorrain Co., O. 

II. David, the builder of many churches in Conn. 

III. Sally, m. Zajihni Potter of Columbia, O. 

IV. Calvin, settled and died in Columbia, O. 
V. Samuel, see text. 

VI. Luther, sec text. 
VII. Urania, b. May 5, 1788; m. February 9, 1806, Riley Whiting. She 

m. (2d) December — , 1841, Erasmus Darwin Calloway. 
VIII. Lemuel, d. Olmsted, or Concord, Ohio. 

IX. Marshall, was drowned when about twelve years old. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. yS5 

Hawlky Oakley, lived on West branch of Spencer street above 
Nelson Beardsley's from this date for five or six years, and then moved to 
Canaan, Conn. He married Lydia, daughter of Luke Hart, and hud 

CHILDREN. 
I. Alva, b. Hartland, Oct. 13, 1799, now a resident of Wmsted, and William, 

now oi Norfolk, and may have had other children. 

Alva Oakley, sou of Hawley above named, came from Canaan to 
Winsted, not far from 1830, and has since resided in the Hoskin home- 
stead on Coe street. He married, May 25, 1826, Roxana, daughter of 
Theodore Hoskin. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Henry, b. Canaan, April 13, 1827; d. W., Oct. 27, 1840. 

II. Helen, b. C, April 13, 1827; m. Thomas Atkins. 

III. Junius Silas, b. C, June 12, 1829; m. Mary A. Atkins. 

IV. Maria Elizabeth, b. C, April 23, 1831 ; d. W., Sept. 6, 1834. 
V. Jennett Alma, b. W., Jan. 18, 1833; d. 

VI. Sarah Elizabeth, b. Jan. 1, 1839. 

1804. 
Ekastus Buur, son of Jehiel and Mabel, appears on the list of this 
year. He learned the scythe maker's trade of Jenkins & Boyd, and in 
1806 bought their original scythe works of Mr. Jenkins, which he operated 
until 1810 when he sold out to Thos. R. Bull, and soon after moved to 
Western New York. He married, about 1806, Polly, daughter of Judah 
West of Winchester. 

Roswell Burr, younger brother of Erastus above, lived on the east 
side of North Main street, half a mile north of the Woodruff tannery until 

1833, when he moved to Ohio. lie married Nancy, daughter of 

Judah West, and had a son David, who married a daughter of Reuben 
Rowley, and lived in the same house with his father until his removal to 
Ohio in 1846 ; and had other children, Luther, Halsey, and Roswell. 

Halsey Burr, younger brother of Erastus and Roswell, learned scythe 
making of Benjamin Jenkins, and in 1S14 built a scythe shop on North 
Main street, which he operated until about 1853, when he sold his shop to 
B. <fc E. Woodall, who erected the long factory building now standing on 
the premises. He lived on the West side of the road, opposite the shop, 
until his death, Jan. 15, 1861. He married Lucy, daughter of Oliver 
White, Sen., by whom he had 

CHILDREN. 
I. Eliza, b. July 19, 1819. 

II. Dency, I). April 10, 1821 ; d. May 2G, 1848. 

III. Matilda, b. July 28, 1822. 

49 



386 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

IV. Jeiiiel, b. Aug. 24, 1824. 

V. Lucy, b. July 5, 1827. 

VI. Maky, b. June 13, 1829. 

VII. Jane A., b. June 27, 1831. 

VIII. Nancy, b. July 7, 1833. 

IX. George H., b. Aug. 7, 1837. 

X. Abby M., b. June 2, 1839. 

XI. Carlos, b. Dec. 29, 1841. 

Luke Hayden, from Torringford, this year bought the John Wright 
farm, on the Old Country road near Rowley pond, on which he lived until 
his removal to Hartland, in 1814. 

1805. 

Reuben Baldwin, from Derby, a joiner, came to Winsted this or the 
preceding year, and superintended the finishing of the meeting-house in 
the east village. He continued his residence in the Society until his death, 
Dec. 15, 1855, at the age of 71. His residence was in the one -and-a half- 
story house near the Lake outlet. He married, July 13, 1807, Nancy, 
daughter of Nathan Wheeler. She died Feb. 7, 1854, aged G5. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Emelinic, b. Sept. 20, 1808; m. Sept. 27, 1832, William F. Hutch; d. Sept. 
22, 1870. 
II. Lyman, b. March 12, 1810; m., Nov. 30, 1837, Rebecca C. Mather, of 

Middletown : Child: Sarah Gray, b. July 16, 1852. 
III. Matilda, b. Feb. 15, 1816 ; in., Dec. 3, 1839, Miles Smith, who d. July 27, 
1851. Child: Martha Benham, b. May, 1848; in., April 23, 1872, 
King T. Sheldon. 

Eliab Bunnell this year bought the lot east of the Park, on which 
the James T. Norton house now stands. In company with Reuben Bald- 
win, he built thereon, for a work shop, the house since owned by Chester 
Soper, and afterwards removed to the south side of Main street, east of 
Hiram Perkins, in which they made patent washing machines until about 
1810, when Mr. Bunnell removed to Vernon, N. Y. 

Andrew Walter, son of John, of Winchester, this year returned from 
Vermont, and spent his remaining life in the town. He was born Dec. 5, 

i77'.! ; married, , , Abigail, daughter of Samuel Westlake, 

of W., and had several children, of whom Charlotte, the oldest, married 
Sylvester Hart, of W. 

1806. 

Rev. James Beach was ordained pastor of the First Congregational 

Church on tin; first of January of this year. He was a native of the 

town, but resided from infancy to early manhood in Torrington. He was 

graduated with honor at Williams College, studied divinity with Rev, 



M, 




^v. 








<£^m>JJ 




'/&-c 



U 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 387 

Asahel Hooker, D. D., of Goshen, and after a brief candidacy, was called 
to and settled over this church on a cash salary of $350 a year, with an 
advance of funds to purchase a dwelling, repayable in yearly installments. 
No record is found of the ordaining exercises. 

He was sound, dignified, and conservative ; faithful in his parochial 
duties, — especially in his pastoral visits and his supervision of the 
schools. The faithfulness of his ministry was attested by repeated re- 
vivals and the exemplary lives of most of the converts. He was dis- 
missed from his charge, at his own request, January 26, 1812, but con- 
tinued his residence until his death on the 10th day of June, 1850, at the 
age of 70 years. 

His character and standing in the ministry is happily portrayed in the 
following sketch by Rev. Doctor Eldridge of Norfolk. 

" Rev. Mi". Beach had been settled in the ministry at Winsted many 
years when I came to reside in Norfolk. I immediately formed his ac- 
quaintance, and soon came to look to him with filial affection and confi- 
dence, feelings that I continued to entertain towards him to the end of 
his life. 

" Mr. Beach was endowed with strong intellectual powers. His bias 
was more towards the practical than the merely speculative. This ten- 
dency, combined with a calm temperament, fitted him to be a wise coun- 
selor, and a most useful member of our ecclesiastical associations. 

"His disposition was social and genial. He was a pleasant man to 
meet. He had a considerate regard for his ministerial brethren, in re- 
spect to their feelings and reputations; rejoiced in their success and in 
their usefulness. I never saw him out of temper, never heard him utter 
a harsh or censorious remark ; he never thrust himself forward, was more 
disposed to stand back and make room for others. 

" I heard him preach but a few times. His sermons were full of truth, 
clearly and plainly expressed. In their delivery he was earnest, but 
never impassioned; — perhaps more of emotion would have improved 
them. His prayers in public, especially those ou special occasions, such 
as ordinations and the like, were very remarkable for their ease, their 
felicitous adaptation in all respects to the circumstances of the case, and 
the happy introduction of scriptural quotations ; and at the same time re- 
markable for their exemption from everything of the nature of effort at 
display, and for their simple tone and humble earnestness. 

" My recollection of Father Beach, as I used to call him, are very dear 
to me. I loved him in life, and lamented him in death, and feel that I 
owe it to his kindness and his encouragement and advice in no small de- 
gree, that I have so long remained where I am." 

He married, Oct. 2o, I8UG, Hannah Clarissa Baldwin, born in Goshen, 



388 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

Conn., March 10, 1784, daughter of Isaac and Lucy (Lewis) Baldwin. 
He died June 10, 1850 ; she died May 7, 1752. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lucy Baldwin, 2 b. Aug. 20, 1807 ; m. Dec. 16, 1830, Henry Ilazen Hyde, 
b. in Catskill, N. Y., July 1, 1805, son of Wilkes and Sarah Hazen 
Hyde. She d. Feb. 7, 1846; and he m. (2d), Feb. 14, 1856, Sarah B. 
Shepard, of Boston. 

CHILDREN. 

1. James Beach, 3 b. Nov. 14, 1831 ; d. Jan. 8, 1850, while in Col- 
lege, an undergraduate. 

2. Henry Baldwin, 3 b. Feb. 15, 1834; m. March 20, 1864, Annie 
Fitch, of New York ; is Vice-President of the Equitable Life As- 
surance Company of New York ; has children: 1. Annie Baldwin, 4 
b. Jan. 15, 1865; d. Sept. 2, 1865. 2. Mary Baldwin, 4 b. Nov. 9, 
1867. 

3. Mary, 3 . b. Sept. 4, 1839; d. Jan. 4, 1840. 

4. Lucy Baldwin, 3 b. Aug. 20, 1841. 

II. Hannah Clarissa, 2 b. March 20, 1809'; d. Oct. 26, 1815. 
III. Mart, 2 b. Dec. 16, 1814; in. Caleb J. Camp. (Their chil- 

dren noted in connection witli the family record of Samuel Camp.) 

Captain Ezekiel Woodford, from Avon or Bloomfield, this year 
purchased of John Sweet the house and land at the corner of Main and 
Coe streets, and there resided during his remaining life. During most of 
this period he kept a tavern, and managed a saw-mill nearly opposite his 
house. He died May 10, 1820, aged 71 ; his wife, Anne (Bishop), died 
December 23, 1831, aged 77. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lucy, m. Wadsworth of West Hartford. 

II. Erastus, late of Winstod. 

III. Jeremiah, late of Bloomfield. 

IV. Nanct, 
V. Romanta, 

VI. Ezekiel, late of Winsted, b. June 30, 1790. 
VII. Mary, 
VIII. Harriet, m. Shepard. 

IX. Lester, b. June 19, 1797. 

Erastus Woodford, son of Ezekiel, came to Winsted soon after his 
father, and owned and occupied the Green Woods Hotel property, on the 
Green Woods turnpike, near Colehrook line, until soon after 1820, when 
he removed to his father's late homestead, where he resided until his 
death, April 20, 1855, at the age of 74. He was Town Clerk from Octo- 
ber 1826, to October 1829, and filled other town offices from time to time. 
He married, November 14, 1805, Ruth Barber, born October 27, 1780, 
daughter of Benjamin and Ruth (Bolles) Barber. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 389 

CHILDREN. 

I. Benjamin Barber, b. Jan. 22, 1807. 

II. Ebastus Sterling, b. Sept. 20, 1S0S. 

III. Julia Ann, b. Feb. 14, 1811 ; m. Willard S. Wetmore. 

IV. Lucius Jonah, b. May 16, 1814. 

V. Cordelia Rutht, b. June 2, ISIS ; in. James II. Tattle. 

Roiianta Woodford, son of Ezekiel, came into the town a few years 
after his father, arid built and occupied the house on Main street, next his 
father's homestead, carrying on the tinning business until his removal to 
Bennington, Greene County, New York, in 1818. 

Ezekiel Woodford, son of Ezekiel, sen., came into the town with 
his father in his minority. He bought his brother Romanta's Homestead 
in Dec, 1817, and there resided until his removal to Windsor in 1832. 
Returning to Winsted in 1857, he lived in the house on the north side of 
Hinsdale street, next east of the graded school house, until his death, 
August 14, 1859, at the age of G9. He was born June 30, 1790; m. 
Sept. 7, 1825, Roxana Lyman, b. June 18, 1797; died Dec. 26, 1871. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Andrew D., b. June 15, 1820; d. Dec. 9, 1826. 
II. George L., b. Dec. 29, 1827. 
III. John, b. March 4, 1831. 

Lester Woodford, youngest son of Capt. Ezekiel, came with his 
father to Winsted while a minor. In 1823. in company with N. Kinney, 
he bought the Klihu Rockwell farm on the Spencer Street road north of 
Amos Pierce, and resided there until his removal to the Russell homestead 
on the Coe street, now owned by Junius Gillett, where he afterward-! 

resided until his removal to in 18G7. He married, Dec. 10, 1823, 

at W., Rosanna, daughter of Luke Case, late of Winchester, defeased. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Lyman Case, b. June 15, 1826, <]. Feb. 10, 1835. 

II. Caroline Elizabeth, b. April 28, 1832, <!. May 21, 1836. 

III. Charles Bishop, b. Feb. 10, 1837. 

IV. Marianne, b. Oct. 16, 1839. 
V. William Sterling, b. Sept. 3, 1842. 

Benjamin Barber Woodford, oldest son of Erastus, lived in the 
Green Woods Hotel, his lather's early residence, from his first marriage to 
about 1848, when he built a small brick house on High street, which he 
occupied until his removal to Derby about 1851. He now lives in Spring- 
field, Muss. He married Polly Ann Hills, and has one daughter, Mary 
C, his only child. 



390 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Erastus Sterling Woodford, second son of Erastus, became a 
partner with Samuel W. Coe and Luman Hubbell, under the firm name of 
Coe, Hubbell & Co., about 1830, and continued with them in mercantile 
business until 1842, when he withdrew from the firm, and did business in 
his individual name until about 1849, when he Avent to California, whence 
he returned some three or four years later, and engaged for a few years 
in the manufacture of pins, and was subsequently engaged in Insurance 
business until his death. He was a man of refined literary culture and 
modest deportment, kind-hearted and public spirited; as a neighbor, 
obliging ; as a citizen, liberal, not only in his contributions to public ob- 
jects, but indefatigable in his personal labors for their advancement. He 
married, October 13, 1834, Huhlah Coe, born April G, 1809, daughter of 
Jonathan and Charlotte (Spencer) Coe. She died of consumption, April 
18, 1859. He married (2d), June 26, 1862, Anna J. Coe, daughter of 
Asahel M. Coe. He died Sept. 26, 1870. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Frank Munro, b. August 10, 1843; d. Dee. 25, 1848. 
II. Louise Hale, b. June 6, 1863. 

Lucius J. Woodford, third son of Erastus, lived as a farmer on the 
old Waterbury turnpike, near Colebrook line, from his first marriage, until 
his removal to the Daniel Tuttle farm on South street near Torringford 
line, in 1845. It is painful to refer to the long protracted and bitter con- 
troversy between him and his brother-in-law, resulting in the death of the 
latter by a gun-shot wound inflicted by the former, and the conviction of 
Mr. W. of murder in the first degree, for which he was sentenced to slate 
prison for life by the superior court for Litchfield county in 1866. On 
his application for pardon in 1869, evidence was introduced before the 
legislative committee, which made a report recommending his pardon, 
and in accordance with the recommendation, he was by the Assembly 
pardoned and liberated. He married Catharine, daughter of Daniel G. 

Tuttle, by whom he had a son, George E., born , , who 

married, Nov. 27, 1864, Rosa A., daughter of John S. Fyler. 

CniLD. 

Frank, b. Feb. — , 1868. 

George Woodford, oldest son of Ezekiel, 2 learned the joiner's 
trade, and resides in this town. He married, Sept. 15, 1856, Helen J. 
Watson, born June 5, 1833. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Ella Louisa, b. Jan. 18, 1859; d. Nov. 23, 1860. 

II. Cora [sabelle, b. Jan. 19, 1862. 

III. De Witt Clinton, b. May 16, 1863. 

IV. Frederick Ezekiel, b. Oct. 5, 1865; d. Sept. 5, 1869. 





( r f f /-(■ 



T~&L 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 391 

John Woodford, second son of Ezekiel, 2 served his time as clerk in 
the mercantile firm of M. & C. J. Camp, and was received into and con- 
tinues a partner in the concern. He married, May 24, 1860, Laura C, 
daughter of Hiram and Irene (Sanford) Burnham, born March 6, 1840. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Arthur Burniiam, b. Oct. 7, 1861. 
II. Frank Clarke, I). Nov. 24, 1S67 ; d. Nov. 17, 1868. 

III. Fannie Louise, b. Jan. 18, 1870. 

1806. 

Joseph T. Cummin g this year came from Kinderhook, N. Y., and, 
in company with Benjamin Jenkins, went into trade in the store building 
on Main street, east village, now occupied by Theophilus Baird, and 
lived in the Ezra Baldwin house adjoining. In 1800 he moved to Otis, 
Mass., where for several years he kept a store and tavern. 

Samuel Rowley, Jr., from Torrington, this year bought the home- 
stead on the Old North road, adjoining Colebrook line, now occupied by 
his son Edwin Rowley, which he occupied until his death in 1854. 

No record is found of his family. His widow died several years after 
him. They had 

CHILDREN. 

I. Calvin, who died a resident of Illinois. 

II. Eliza, wife of Orrin Freeman of Winchester. 

.III. Lucia J., of Colebrook, in 185S; d. in Illinois about ISG'j. 

IV. Edward (twin). 

V. Edwin (twin), of Colebrook. 
VI. Mary, (twin), m. — Miller. 
VII. Mariaii (twin), m. Darwin Smith. 

BENJAMIN JOHNSON, a cabinet maker, owned and lived in a house, 
now torn down, on the north side of West Lake street, nearly opposite 
the brick house built by John C. Stabell, from 1806 to 1812, when he 
moved to Ohio. Among other children he had one daughter, who mar- 
ried Dr. Steese of Massilon, O. 

15; usley Carpenter, a singing master, is on the list of this year. 
From 1807 to 1816 he lived on the Jonathan Gilbert farm, on South 
street. He had one or more sons and two daughters — Eunice, now 
living (1S72) here, and Emily, who married, August 24, 1834, James B. 
Phelps, from Leicester, Mass., and resided here until his death, March 
25, 1857. She died in 1870. 

Elizur Hinsdale came from Torrington in 1805. He this year 



392 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

built, and afterwards occupied, the house on north side of Main street, 
now owned by Philo G. Sheldon, and a trip-hammer shop on the site of 
the Foundry & Machine Co.'s Works, in which he manufactured axes 
until his removal to Leroy, N. Y. His first wife, Olive, died October 
28, 1816, aged 30. He married (2d) Mrs. — Everett of New Milford, 
in 1817. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Mary Elizabeth, baptized June 7, 1807. 
II. Morris. 

III. Charlotte Maria, bap. October 16, 1814. 

IV. A Daughter, bap. ,1819. 

Elam Rockwell appears on the list as a resident this year. From 
1812 to 1814 he owned and lived on Mad River, near the Danbury 
schoolhouse. 

Daniel Burnham, from 1806 to 1814, owned and lived in a house 
nearly opposite and west of the stone bridge over Still River, and car- 
ried on a chair factory in the upper part of Hoadley's Mill. In 1826 he 
bought the Lemuel Clarke place on Wallen's Hill, which he occupied 
until his death, May 19, 1836, at the age of 54. His wife, Clarissa C, 
died February 22, 1855, aged 74. The names of their deceased 
children, as found in their burial lot, are — 

I. Daniel C, d. January 19, 1810, aged 6. 

II. Luther, d. August 23, 1837, aged 26. 

III. Ekwin, d. February 12, 1812, aged 19. 

IV. Henry S., d. July 5, 1818, aged 2. 

V. Sally A., m. December 9, 1830, Rufus Cleveland; d. April 17, 1854, 

aged 51. They bad another daughter, Clarissa, who m., September 
13, 1831, Milo Hall of New Marlboro, Mass. 

Joseph Miller, Esq., attorney-at-law, commenced practice in Win- 
sted this year. In 1807 he built the house on the north side of Main 
street, now owned by Mrs. Parke, in which he lived until his removal to 
Kalamazoo Co., Michigan. 

He was a graduate of Williams' College, and of the Litchfield Law 
School ; a man of literary tastes and sound legal acquirements ; a kind, 
generous-hearted man, genial and upright ; a good neighbor and 
citizen. 

As a- lawyer, he was able in argument, and honorable in practice. An 
inborn principle of uprightness unfitted him for resort to professional 
tricks, and his moral sense revolted at whatever was mean or treacher- 
ous. By the court and bar he was highly respected. 

n 1834, with a view to the advancement of a large family, he 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 393 

removed to Richland, then a sparsely-settled region, where he devoted 
himself to clearing and cultivating his new homestead, and limitedly 
to law practice. His children grew up around him, prospered and 
respected. 

While a resident of Winsted, he was chosen a delegate to the conven- 
tion which framed the constitution of Connecticut in 1818, and was 
subsequently a representative of the town in the general assembly. 

In Michigan he was also a delegate of his county to the constitutional 
convention of that state, and held other public offices. 

He married, in June, 1808, Sarah Sherman, who died December 30, 
1810; married (2d) October 1, 1817, Elizabeth, daughter of Eli 
Richards, who died July 17, 1858, aged 73. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFK. 
I. Sherman, b. April 29, 1809 ; lost on the steamer Pulaski, on the 
Carolina coast, in June, 1838, unmarried. 
II. Sakah Ann, b. January 28, 1811 ; m. Ira Peake ; d. at Richland, Mich., 
January 27, 1S59 ; left six children. 

III. Jane, b. December 23, 1812 ; m. Doctor E. Stetson of Neponsct, 111. 

IV. Lydia M., b. Apr. 5, 1825; m. Enos Northrup, Richland, Mich. 

V. Joseph, b. December 13,1816, studied law with his father and was 

admitted to the bar of Kalamazoo county. Prosecuting attorney of said 
county for several years ; U. S. Attorney, District of Michigan, from 
1857 to 1861 ; an able and upright lawyer, a public-spirited and influen- 
tial citizen. " Thoroughly identified, both by early associations and 
matured intimacy with the people among whom he lived, his genial 
nature, his ripened and unerring judgment, his high legal attainments, 
and above all, his pure and unsullied integrity and entire truthfulness of 
thought and expression, won the heart and secured the attachment of all 
who approached him." At the session of the U. S. District Court, 
holden at the time of his decease, the district attorney, in announcing his 
death, remarked, " The period of our deceased brother's connection with 
the officers ami bar of this court is so recent that it is unnecessary to 
call to mind the ability, the courtesy, the clear intellect, and the warm 
heart which characterized him in the manifold relations of his official 
and professional life. He was endowed by nature with a mind of high 
order, and with sympathies unusually tender, which drew around him 
troops of friends, whom his talents enabled him to serve. A handsome 
competency, and the best practice of his section of the state, was the 
fruit of his diligence and ability." He m. Charlotte B. Brown. 
CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE. 
VI. Eli Richards, b. Oct. 12, 1818; m., 1st, Artheusa Mills; 2d, Harriet 
Cook. 
VII. James, b. Feb. 11, 1838; m. Mary Ada Smith. 

1807. 
Benjamin Skinner, from East Hartford, a miller, came to Winsted this 
year and had charge, of Rockwell's mill during his remaining life, and 
lived in the old lean-to house on Lake street. He was a man of most 
50 



394 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

industrious habits and sincere piety, training and educating his large fam- 
ily, ainl discharging the duties of a Christian citizen with exemplary 
fidelity. He died Feb. 5, 1814, aged 48. His wife Nabby (Spencer) 
died Dec. 2, 1830, aged 59. 

CHILDREN. 

I. James, 1). m., , Harriet Spencer, of Hart- 

ford; d. in Hartford. Children : 1. Edward, d. young; 2. James, m. 
Harriet Spencer. 
II. Benjamin, b. 1794; m. d. Sept., 1854, aged 60 ; 

has one son (Henry) now m. and living in Ohio. 

III. Abigail, b. 1797 ; d. unmd. June 16, 1842, aged 45. 

IV. Ehoda, b. d. unmd. Feb. 17, 1864. 

V. Horace, b. m. (1st) Charity Sage, (2d) Sarah Clark. 

Children by first wife: 1. Charles; 2. Horace; 3. Sarah. By 
second wife : 4. Abby; 5. Mary; 6. Belle; 7. Sarah Beach. Had 
seven children, all dead in 1872. 
VI. Henry. 

VII. Timothy Phelps, b. Sept. 11, 1807 ; in., March — , 1840, Mary T. Jaqnes. 
VIII. Frederick. 
IX. Lucius, b. m., June 20, 1836, Lucy Champion; 

was drowned in Naugatuck river by railroad disaster at Plymouth, Conn. 
Children: 1. Ellen Maria, b. May 22, 1838; 2. Hannah Clark, h. May 
10, 1840, d. ; 3. Lucius Spencer, b. March 28, 1843; 

4. Frank Bevins, h. April 23, 1850. 

Capt. Lemuel Clarke, from Whately, Mass., came to Winsted this 
year, and bought the David Mills farm, afterwards owned by Daniel 
Burnham, on Wallen's Hill, on which he resided until 1826. He served 
as a sergeant in the Continental army in the Revolutionary War ; was in 
the battle of Bunker Hill and other engagements, and retired from the 
service with a certificate of honorable discharge signed by Washington. 

He was born at , Mass., March 24, 1755 ; married at Sunderland, 

Mass., by Rev. Mr. Ashley, in October, 1779, to Kezia Hubbard: he died 
Aug. 22, 1840; she died March 22, 1843. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Lucius, b. July 14, 1780, d. March 9, 1782. 

II. Levi Hubbard, b. Sept. 22, 1782; grad. Yale College, 1802; states 
attorney Middlesex Co., Conn., 1807-8; judge of Monroe Co. court, 
N. Y., in 1818; judge of seventh and tenth ward court, N. Y., in 1835; 
assistant editor of New York American, 1821-4, and New York Com- 
mercial Advertiser 1833-5. He m. Nov. — , 1809, Mary Ann, daughter 
of John Griswold, of Lyme, Conn., eldest sou of Gov. Matthew Gris- 
wold. She d. Jan. 30, 1812, aged 26. 

CHILD. 

Elizabeth Brainard, m. Sept. 14, 1844, Bushnell White, Esq., a 
lawyer of Cleveland, Ohio. Child; John Griswold White, b. 
August 10, 1845, at Cleveland, Ohio, and now practising law in 
that city. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS . 395 

III. Caroline, b. Feb. 6, 1785, d. May 11, 1790. 

IV. Kezia, b. Due. 21, 1787 ; m., , William Moore, d. De- 

cember, 1824. 
V. Lucius, b. Wliately, Mass., Any. 22, 1790, d. Dec. 28, 18(53. 

VI. Erastds Lemuel, b. May 21, 1793; m. ; d. Oct. 27, 1835. 

VII. Augustus, b. Sept. 8, 1796; d. Aug-. 9, 1803. 

VIII. George Hubbard, b. Dee. 27, 1799; d. Feb. 22, 1852; m. (1) 

Lucius Clarke, sou of Capt. Lemuel, married, Jan. — , 181'.), Nancy, 
daughter of James Boyd, of AVinchester. 

CHILDREN. 

I.Caroline, b. Rochester, N. Y., May 4, 1822 ; d. 1822. 

II. Frederick Boyd, b. Rochester, N. Y., Dec. 11, 1823; d. 1825. 

III. Lucius Hubbard, b. Winsted, Sept. 25, 1825; d. s. p. 

IV. Mary Munro, b. Winsted, May 4, 1827 ; m. H. B. Alvord. 

V. Thomas Montague, b. Winsted, Jan. 4, 1830; m., May 6, 1839, Julia Cat- 
lin, daughter of Dr. Orrin B. Freeman, Canton, Conn.; Children: 
1. Carrie, d. in infancy; 2. Lucius F., d. in infancy; 3. Harry Catlin ; 
4. Caroline Freeman; 5. Boyd; 6. Munro, d. in infancy; 7. Thomas 
M., d. in infancy; 8. Fanny; 9. Jessie. 
VI. Edward, b. April 15, 1832; m. Susan Holmes. 

VII. Martha, b. Springfield, Mass., 1834; d. 

VIII. Susan, b. Feeding Hills, Mass., July 10, 1838; m. Rev. Mal- 

colm McGregor Dana, minister of First Congregational Church, Nor- 
wich. Children : 1. 

Jasper Grinnell appears on this year's list. He built a house on 
the south side of the Wallen's Hill road, a little east of the ancient bury- 
ing ground near the clock factory, in which he resided until his death, 
Feb. 24, 1832. Of his family we have no record except his marriage to 
Lucy Filley, Sept., 1811, and the grave stones of two 

CHILDREN. 
Lydia E., d. March 28, 1809, aged 8. 
Edwin D., d. Feb. 10, 1814, aged 2. 

David Tallmadge is on the assessment list of this and many suc- 
ceeding years. He was not a land owner, and had no permanent residence. 
He raise' 1 , a family of children, of whom the wife of Truman Scovill 
was one. 

Eben Coe, son of Ensign Jonathan, married, Dec. 1, 1806, Eliza 
daughter of Philemon Kirkinn, and after living with his father, built and 
occupied the Jesse Williams house, on Spencer street, until near the date 
of his death, lie died Sept. 10, 1813, aged 33, soon after which his 
widow and children moved to Ohio. (See Coe Record.) 

Deacon Elisha Smith is on the list of this year. He is noticed, and 
his family record given in connection with the record of his father, Capt. 
Zebina Smith. 



396 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

1808. 

Dr. Lyman Strong, from Southampton, Mass., this year began prac- 
tice in Winsted as a physician, and in 1809 became principal of the 
grammar school or Academy then first opened there, and continued to 
teach and practice until his removal to Guilford in 1810, where ho prac- 
ticed until 1816, when he moved to Hartford and opened a hoarding and 
day school for young ladies. In 1821 he moved to Beaufort, S. C, and 
officiated as president of a college in that place. Here he was licensed to 
preach by the Presbytery of Charleston, S. C, he having, before coming 
to Winsted, studied theology with Rev. Asahel Hooker, of Goshen. Re- 
turning to New England, he was, in 1825, settled in Hebron, Conn., and 
in 1830, at Colchester, Conn., where he spent his remaining life, and died 
Dec. 31,1861, aged 80. He graduated at Williams' College in 1802, and 
was tutor for one year ; studied medicine with Dr. Sumner, of Westfield, 
Mass. He was a man of fine appearance and address, and a teacher of 
high order — a Puritan of the Puritans ; " an industrious, earnest, cheerful 
man, full of joy in his life of active service to God and mankind." 

He was born Sept. 12, 1781 ; married, March 12, 1808, Clarissa 
Morse, daughter of Jacob Morse, of Westfield ; she died at Colchester, 
Dec. 20, 1821, aged 49; and he married (2d) at Middletown, Conn., 
Widow Khoda Matson, daughter of Israel Newton. She died Dec. 18, 
1843, aged 58; and he married (3d) widow Olivia (Bridges) Brooks, b. 
March 24, 1808. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 
I. Clarissa Morse, b. at Winsted, June 24, 1809; m., May 4, 1837, Rev. 
Jason Atwater, a grad. of Yale in 1825, and pastor at Middlebury, Conn., 
where she d. Feb. 13, 1844. 
II. Elizabeth, b. June 5, and d. June 8, 1812. 

III. Lyman, b. in Guilford, Feb. 20, and d. July 21, 1815. 

Hermon Munson, from Middlebury, Conn., is on the list of this, and 
several following years. He moved into Barkhamsted, after his marriage, 
and lived on the Green Woods turnpike, about half a mile east of the 
town line, until his death, April 7, 1854, aged 72. He married, Jan. 1, 
1810, Polly, daughter of Benoni Bronson of Winchester. She died May 
9, 1849, aged 60, and he married (2d), Mrs. Smith. He had 

CHILDREN BY HIS FIRST WIFE. 

I. Mart, who d. unmarried, Jan. 30, 1831, aged 21. 
II. Sidney, of Minnesota. 

III. Emerett, m., Nov. — , 1837, Henry E. Rockwell ; d. Aug. 22, 

1852, aged 36. 
IV Abigail, of Minnesota. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 397 



1809. 

Deacon James II. Alvord* moved from East Hampton, Conn., 
this year, and soon after built the house at the north corner of North Main 
street and the lane leading west of the center burying ground, where he 
lived the remainder of Ids days a quiet, industrious, and exemplary life, 
devoted to the wise training and educating of a large family, and the up- 
building of the Church, of which he was an office bearer from 1836 to his 
death. He was born in Chatham, Conn., Aug. 8, 1781 ; married Oct. 11, 
1804, Lucy Cook, born Aug. 7, 1784. He died July 29, 1868. She died 
Sept. 11, 1850. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Clarissa Pitkin, b. Aug. 7, 1805; resides in Winsted. 
II. John Watson, b. April 18, 1807; began life as a merchant's clerk in 
Hartford, Ct , in 1828, and during the nextyear becoming convinced that, 
he must preach the gospel, declined an offer of partnership, and in 1830 
began his preparation, studying at Oneida Institute, Lane Seminary, and 
Oberlin, where he graduated in 1836, and was ordained the same year. 
He preached one year at Maumee City, O., and since that has preached at 
Barkhamsted, and Stamford, Conn., and at South Boston, Mass. ; has 
been District Secretary of American Tract Society, Boston ; Inspector 
of Schools and Finances for the Freedmen, under Maj. Gen. Howard; 
and since 1869, Pres. of the Freedmen' s Savings Rank and Trust Com- 
pany at Washington, where he now resides. 

He m. June 3, 1845, Myrtilla Mead Peck, b. Greenwich, Conn., Oct. 
II, 1819, daughter of Ohadiah and Lisette (Mead) Peck. 

CHILDREN. 

1. Mary Anna, b. Granville, Ct., July 21, 1846; d. Boston, Mass. 
Aug. 18, 1847. 

2. Julia Mead, b. Boston, Aug. 8, 1847; m. in Washington, D. C, 
Dec. 15, 1870, John L. Cole, and has a son, Dorr Edward, b. Dec. 
29, 1871. 

* II is father, Ruel Alvord, son of Scth and Elizabeth (Spencer) Alvord, was cousin 
to Deacon Eliphaz Alvord, who has already been noticed. He married, Nov. 15, 1774, 
Hannah Hall. He settled in Chatham, Conn., where he died, March 27, 1810, in his 
60th year. She died, Aug. 3, 1830, aged 77 years. 

CHILDREN. 

I. John, b. Chatham, Oct. 14, 1775 ; d. at sea, Nov. 11, 1800. 
II. Sibyl, b. " May 30, 1777; m. Parmenas Watson. 

HI. Mary, b. " March 14, 1779; m. March 14, 1802, Elisha Rowley, 

b. C, March 14, 1780; they settled in Winchester in 1805. 
IV. James Hall, b. Chatham, Aug. 8, 1781. 
V. Lucy, b. Durham, Conn., May 14, 1785; m. Sept. 30, 1806, Chaun- 

cey Brooks: settled in Winchester, where she d. Sept. 1, 1831. 
VI. Esther, l». Chatham, July 18, 1789; d. /Vug. 28, 1835, unmarried. 

VII. Jabez, b. " Sept. 27, 1792 ; d. Feb. 28, 1828, 

VIII. Hannah, b. " March 1, 1795; d. Aug. 17, 1832, 



398 * ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

3. Charles Stewart, b. Boston, March 3, 1849; d. Boston, Jan. 3, 

1853. 
4 John Watson, b. Boston, Nov. 20, 1852 ; d. Greenwich, Conn., 

May 8, 1853. 

5. George Lewis, b. Groton, Mass., Aug. 2, 1854; d. Groton, Oct. 
21, 1855. 

6. Samuel, b. Newton Centre, Mass., Feb. 23, 1857. 

7. James Hall, b. Newton Centre, Mass., April 23, 1858 ; d. New- 
ton Centre, March 19, 1861. 

8. John Watson, b. Newton Centre, Jan. 25, 1861. 

III. Mary Cook, b. W., Feb. 26, 1809; d. Feb. 12, 1830. 

IV. Susan B., b. Feb. 12, 1811 ; m. May 30, 1838, Asahel M. Rice, of W., 

has one daughter, Harriet M., b. March 24, 1848. 
V. Richard, b. March 8, 1813 ; d. Dec. 1, 1818. 
VI. Catharine, b. Feb. 12, 1815. 
VII. James, b. " 10, 1817 ; d. March 17, 1820. 

VIII. Charles, b. Aug. 16, 1819; m. June 5, 1844, his cousin, Melissa Wat- 
son, b. Jan. 4, 1818, daughter of Parmenas and Sibyl (Alvord) Wat- 
son ; has 

CHILDREN. 

1. Lucy Cook, b. June 5, 1846. 

2. Theodore Watson, b. April 11, 1848. 

3. Clara Melissa, b. July 25, 1850. 

4. Jabez, b. " 15, 1858. 

IX. Amanda Malvina, b. Aug. 20, 1821 ; m. Aug. 31, 1841, John Hinsdale. 
X. James Richard, b. Oct. 7, 1823; m. Dec. 3, 1849, Mary Eliza Landon, 
b. in Poultney, Vt, Sept. 12, 1824, daughter of Rev. Seymour and 
Phebe (Thompson) Landon. 

children. 

1. Louise Landon, b. Sept, 5, 1852 ; d. Jan. 4, 1870. 

2. Charles, b. March 20, 1854. 

3. Seymour Landon, b. Aug. 6, 1856. 

4. Elliot Beardsley, b. Aug. 2, 1859; d. Aug. 19, 1859. 

5. James Richard, b. April 3, 1860; d. 1865. 

XL George, b. Aug. 23, 1825; m. June I, 1863, Elizabeth Peck Hubbard, b. 
Sunderland, Mass., May 19, 1830, daughter of Ashley and Betsey (Dole) 
Hubbard ; has been clerk in the Navy Department, Washington ; Cash- 
ier of Hurlbut Bank, West Winsted ; is now in the printing business in 
Winsted ; no children. 
XII. Jabez, b. Feb. 3, 1828; a machinist; a soldier of the w of 1861, and 
Postmaster of Winsted ; unmarried. 



1810. 

Jesse Byington came to Winsted this year, and in the following 
year built the Evert Bevins house, on the west side of North Main street. 
He also built a nail factory on the water privilege of the Winsted Manu- 
facturing Company (long .since burned down), in which the nails were cut, 
and another shop, opposite his house, where the nails were headed by hand- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 399 

blows. He employed a large number of hands, and did a prosperous 
business until about 1815, when he abandoned the business. He died Sept. 
12, 1831, aged 46. He married about the time of his coming to Winsted, 
and bad two daughters, Jane and Finette. Jane was of Torrington, 
and Finette of New Haven, in 1839. 

William Goucher, an iron refiner, lived in Winsted from 1809 to 
about 1825. He had among other children, Samuel, who went to En- 
field and died there; Polly, married, Jan. 13, 1833, Legrand Hubbell, 
who was killed in October, 1838, by the bursting of a grindstone, aged 32, 
and Hiram, now (1872) living, a bachelor, in Winsted. His wife died 
December, 1833. 

Joshua Hewitt came to Winsted in bis boyhood, and came of age 
this year. He worked as a shoemaker a few years, and then became an 
iron refiner, which trade he pursued until about 1835. He built the 
house on Spencer street, at the foot of Cobble Hill, in 1850, in which he 
afterwards lived until his death, April 13, 1864, aged 73. He married, 
April 24, 1808, Polly Williams. She died April 14, 1842, aged 55. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Sally, b. July 8, 1809; m. Squire Sackett. 

II. Homer, b. January 14, 1811 ; d. November 2, 1831, unmarried. 

III. Maria, b. ; m. August 23, 1837, Francis Brown. Child: 

Sarah, I). ; m. Charles Terry. 

IV. Abigail, b. ; m. Daniel Brown. 

V. Lucia, b. ; m. August 16, 1838, Justin Hodge, Captain 

of Volunteers in Mexican War, and Colonel of Volunteers in War of 
the Rebellion. Child : Thadeus Kosciusko. 
VI. Harriet, d. January 24, 1821, aged one year. 

VII. Julia Ann, d. December 3, 1821, aged one year. 

VIII. Henry Hiram, b. September 24, 1822; m. (1st), October 24, 1848, 

Marietta T. Coe. She d. August 14, 1851. Child: Marietta, b. Aug. 
12, 1851 ; (2d), October 12, 1852, Amanda M. Coe. Child : Henrietta, 
b. December 14, 1853. 
IX. Sylvia, b. May — , 1824 ; m. August 5, 1844, John B. Bishop. 

X. Edward (twin), b. May — ,1826; m. Laura Andrews; m. (2d), Mary 

Wheeler. 
XI. Edwin (twin), b. May — , 1826; m. Charlotte Wilbraham. 

XII. Charlotte, d. January 31, 1830. 

Isaac Johnson from Rhode Island, lived in an old barrack house at 
the north corner of North Main and Hinsdale streets. lie died Novem- 
ber 6, 1829, aged 50, leaving sons and daughters — among them — 

Isaac, now of Barkhamsted. 
The wife of Jonas Le Roy of W. 
Lodoiska, wife of — Scovill of Litchfield. 



400 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Selden Mitchell, sou of Joseph, is on the list of this year. He 
built, and occupied until after 1820, the house on the south side of Main 
street, now (1872) owned by Sheldon Kinney, Sen., and had a wagon 
maker's shop in the rear basement. He moved to Colebrook River 
about 1821. No record of his family is found. 

William Murray, son of David, an early settler, lived in Win- 
chester from this year to about 1840. He married Ann Hewitt, sister of 
Joshua, was by trade a shoemaker, and afterwards a carpenter. No 
record is found of his family. 

John Rohrabacher, an iron refiner, came from Ancram, N. Y., 
this year, and lived on the north side of Lake street, immediately above 
the Connecticut Western Railroad bridge, until his removal to Cortland 
Co., N. Y., about 1820. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Electa, m. Andrew Brusie of Virgil, N. Y. 
II. Betsey, d. August 10, 1817, aged 13. 
III. Isaac, and others. 

John Storer, a joiner, married, January 7, 1808, Eunice, daughter 
of John Church, and had by her, 

CHILDREN. 

I. Simeon, b. September 30, 1808, now an inhabitant of this town. 
II. David, b. December 3, 1810. 

III. Eliza, b. November 4, 1812 ; m. July 3, 1834, Samuel D. Sheldon. 

About 1820 Mr. Storer joined the Shaker community, at Tyringham, 

Mass. 

Riley Whiting, son of Christopher, an early settler of the town, 
this or the preceding year became a resident of Winsted. He is noticed 
and his family record given in connection with his father, under date 
of 1799. 

1801 to 1821. 

AVe compile a summary of buildings erected, roads opened, and institu- 
tions established within the limits of the borough of Winsted from 1800 
to 1811, as follows : — 

1800. 

The original store of Bissell Hinsdale, on the site of Camp's brick 
block, enlarged about 1812, and removed about 1848. It now constitutes 
two tenant houses on the west side of Main street, next south of Monroe 
street bridge. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 4Q1 



1802. 

The dwelling house of Deacon Alpha Rockwell was built on the site of 
the Beardsley house, and was taken down and re-erected on the east corner 
of High and Union streets, in 1849, by John Westlake. The scythe estab- 
lishment of James Boyd, near the corner of Lake and Meadow streets, 
was erected in 1802, rebuilt about 1833, and in 1853 was converted by 
Louis R. Boyd into a manufactory of planters' hoes. 

1803. 

The dwelling house on Main street, now owned and occupied by John 
T. Rockwell, was erected by James Boyd, and occupied by him and 
his widow until 1853. 

The Woodford homestead, at the corner of Main and Coe streets, was 
erected by John Sweet. 

The Hosea Hinsdale homestead, at the corner of Main and Spencer 
streets., erected by James Shepard. 

The original tavern building, on the site of Hicks' Hotel, east corner 
of Main and North Main streets, erected by Benjamin Jenkins. 

Merritt Bull erected a scythe establishment on the pond stream 
adjoining Meadow street bridge, which was rebuilt by Rockwell and 
Hinsdale about 1832, and has recently been purchased by the Winsted 
Hoe Company for plating of hoes and forging chisels. 

Hosea Hinsdale and James Shepard erected a tannery on the site of 
the fish pond recently excavated by John T. Rockwell, near the parting 
of Main and Spencer streets. The original building ceased to be used as 
a tannery about 1851, and was torn down about 1870. 

The gambrel-roofed store on Main street, occupied by T. Baird, near 
the corner of North Main street, was erected by Philemon Kirkum in 
1804. 

1805. 

Joseph Mitchell built a one-story house on or near the site of Joseph 
II. Norton's dwelling, on the north side of Main street, which was torn 
down by Henry B. Crowe about 1851. 

In the same year, the two-story house on the west side of North 
Main street, nearly opposite the west wing of the clock factory dam, was 
built by Samuel Hoadley. 

1806. 

The house on the north side of Main sti et, now owned and occu] ted 
by Ezra Baldwin, was built by Joseph 1. Cummings and Benjamin 
Jenkins. 

51 



402 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



1807. 



Philemon Kirkum built a small house on the east side; of Main street, 
which was torn down by Dr. James Welch to make room for his present 
residence. 

The late homestead of Reuben Cook, on North Main street, was built 
by Benjamin lloadley. 

The original west village district school was burned down at the close 
of 1806, and a now one. .vas erected this year on the same ground, and 
with slight improvement on its predecessor. It continued in use as a 
school house until about 1840, when it was removed to make room for 
the long and unsightly building erected in its place, which has recently 
been superseded by the new graded school edifice on Hinsdale street. 

James Boyd and Horace lligley erected a saw mill on the site of the 
New England Pin Company's Works, near the Naugatuck Depot, and 
also the bridge communicating therewith from Main street; and in 1808 
they erected an iron forge on Main street, directly opposite the Clarke 
house. It was kept up as long as the manufacture of refined bar iron 
continued remunerative, and was sold in 1845 to parties who erected the 
Pin Company's building. 

1808. 

The first Methodist meeting house was built on the east side of Spen- 
cer street, immediately north of the school house, and, within a few 
years, has been converted into a double tenement house. Prior to the 
building of this house, the Methodists had worshiped in the adjoining 
school-house. Their number, though limited, included a highly respect- 
able ela>s of our inhabitants. 

In those days, the Methodist and Congregational religionists had little 
more sympathy or intercourse with each other than the old Jews and 
Samaritans. The circuit-rider came on his rounds and declaimed against, 
steeple meeting houses, pitch-pipe singing, and the doctrine of Election. 
The membership kneeled on the floor in prayer,and gave vent to their de- 
votional feelings by the loud "Aniens,'" or the Gloria Patri. The women 
eschewed ribbons, curled hair, and gay dresses. The old men — and some 
of the young ones — wore straight-bodied coats; — and both sexes wore 
a vinegar aspect. 

The "Presbyterians," — as they were termed. — on the oilier hand 
looked on the Methodists as interlopers and fanatics, who had come in to 
disturb the peace of the Standing Order as by Saybrook platform estab- 
lished. The Methodists were all Democrats; the Standing Order were 
mainly high-toned Federalists of Pharisaical tendencies. The two had 
apparently no mutual sympathies, and never inter-communed with each 
other. 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 403 

Time and circumstances have worn away the prejudices and softened 
the asperities of the two denominations. Intermarriages have led to 
mutual forbearance. The temperance movement brought the best men 
and women of the two orders into co-operation ; aud the anti slavery 
movement, fearlessly advocated by the living Christianity of both churches, 
was the death blow to sectarianism. 

1809. 

Joseph Miller, Esq., erected his dwelling-house on the northerly side of 
Main street, now owned and occupied by Mrs. Parke; and Solomon 
Rockwell and Brothers erected an iron store on the lot next north of the 
Beardsley House, which was torn down about I860. 

The Rockwell Brothers erected an iron forge on the site of the table 
cutlery works on the lake stream, immediately below Hulbert's iron 
works. It was discontinued as a forge about 1850, and converted into 
a cutlery establishment by the Eagle Cutlery Company. 

1811. 

Reuben Cook, of Winsted, Russell Bnnn & Co., and Charles Seymour, 
of Hartford, erected an iron forge on Still River, below the Winsted 
Manufacturing Company's Scythe Works, which subsequently became the 
sole property of Mr. Cook, and was carried on until the organization of 
the Cook Axle Company about 1850, where the present brick factory on 
the premises was erected. 

After the burning down of the we-! village district school-house in 1807, 
there was a general desire to erect a new building of sufficient capacity 
for a graded school, to meet the growing wants of the community. Plaus 
were proposed and debated; — jealousies arose, and the project fell 
through. The house erected was contracted and shabby. The new vil- 
lagers, with limited outside aid, set about providing better facilities for 
the education of their growing families, and this year erected the building 
on Main street, next north of Forbes' furniture establishment, for a gram- 
mar school. It was arranged with an upper room for the advanced 
scholars and a lower room for the younger class ; and was opened by 
Doctor Lyman Strong as principal, and his sister-in-law, Miss Eliza 
Morse, as assistant teacher. The enterprise was a decided success. The 
bers not only attracted the scholars of the village but numbers from 
adjoining towns. Doctor Strong removed to Guilford in 1810, and was 
succeeded by Curtis Warner, a graduate of Yale, who continued his faith- 
ful and acceptable labors until his sickness, which terminated in death in 
1813. He was succeeded by our late fellow citizen, Nathaniel B. Gay- 
lord, who taught one or two seasons with eminent success. 

Other teachers followed, of varied qualifications, until the children of 
most of the projectors of the school had completed their academic edu- 



404 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

cation, and several of them had entered college. From 1817 to 1835 the 
sessions of the school became irregular, and the attendance so limited, that 
the school was abandoned and the building appropriated to other uses. 

Great as were the benefits of this school to those who attended it, the 
cause of general education would have been far more effectually promoted 
by combining the energies of the whole community in the organization 
and support of such a graded school as had been projected and defeated. 

The failure of that project at so early a day is not to be wondered at 
when it is considered that, with the clearer light thrown on the subject by 
modern educators, and the universal attention directed to it, repeated 
efforts at reform have, during the past fifteen years, been frustrated ; and 
that effective measures of improvement have only been initiated during 
the last five years. 

In 1808 the homestead of the late James H. Alvord, deceased, on the 
west side of the East village park, was erected, and was finished the fol- 
lowing year. 

Elizur Hinsdale erected the original house on the north side of Main 
street, now owned by Philo G. Sheldon, which he afterwards enlarged to 
its present dimensions, and occupied until about 1820. 

1809. 

In 1809, Selden Mitchell built the house on the south side of Main 
street, now owned and occupied by Sheldon Kinne} 7 , senior, and during 
the same or following year, Jesse Byington built, on the west side of 
North Main street, the house subsequently owned by Evart Kevins and 
Edward G. Whiting, and now the homestead of George B. Owen. 

In 1810, Asahel Miller built the house now owned by Thomas F. 
Davis, on the east side of Main street, above George Dudley's tannery ; 
and Riley Whiting built, on the east side of Still River, the house 
recently owned and occupied by Rollin L. Beecher. 

The Pratt street road was laid out and opened in 1810. As laid out, 
it crossed Mad River immediately east, of the Foundry and Machine 
( lompany's Works, and extended about one mile southward to its present 
termination, but when made it was found best to cross the river by the 
depot bridge, then recently erected by Mr. Boyd for the convenience of 
his iron works, and to run by an easier grade to where the surveyed line 
crossed Prospect street. 

Nearly cotemporaneous with the opening of Pratt street road, the 
ancient road along the line of Hinsdale street was discontinued, it being 
considered no longer of public convenience and necessity after the 
opening of the Green Wood., turnpike, and the diversion of travel from 
the Old Country road over Wallen's Hill. The wisdom of this measure 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 405 

proved short-sighted, for about 1835 it was relaid and opened at a heavy 
expense to the town. 

The assessment list of 1810 comprises the following items: 

10.3 Polls between 21 and 70, - - at $60.00 

11 " " 18 " 21, - - " 30.00 

119 Oxen, - " 10.00 

388 Neat Cattle, - " 7.00 

102 " - - " 3.34 

78 Horses, - " 10.00 

5 " - 7.00 
2 " - - " 3.34 

298 Acres Land, - - " 1.67 

1046 " " .... « 1.34 

51 " " - - " .84 

2226 " " ... « .34 

2123 " - - - - .17 

1782 " - - .09 

2 Chaises, ... « 30.00 

6 " ..... « 20.00 
13 Silver Watches, - - " 10.00 

2 Brass Clocks, - - - " 20.00 

36 Wooden " - - - - 7. on 

4 Fire-places, .... « 5. on 

18 - ... « 3.75 

64 - - " 2.5(1 

69 " - " 1.25 

2 Stores, 

Money at interest, .... 275.00 

Assessments on trades, - - 1417.00 

Net amount after deducting abatements, 13,474.03 

Net amount of Old Society, - 17,398.32 



Total amount of whole town, - $30,872.35 

Highway tax, 3 percent, in labor, - - $ 906.17 

Town tax, 5 " " cash, - 1544.72 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

NEW COMERS.— FAMILY RECORDS.— WAR OF 1812; ITS EFFECT ON BUSINESS, &c. 

1811 to 1821. 

We note among the new comers of the year 1811 as follows: 
Andrew Brusie, an iron refiner from Ancram, N. Y., first appears 
on the tax list of this year. He resided in the West Village until his 
removal to Virgil, Cortland Co., N. Y., about 1830, where he erected and 
carried on an iron forge for several years, and is believed to be still living. 
He married Electa, daughter of John Roherbacher, and had children. 

Russell Page, a tailor from Cheshire, this year bought the house that 
stood on the site of James T. Norton's present residence where he lived 
and worked at his trade until 1814. He had a wife but no children. 

Charles C. Caul, an iron refiner, this year came from Ancram, 
N. Y., and worked mainly for the Rockwell Brothers until his death, about 
1830. He had a wife, and children — Aaron, Hiram, Amelia, Andrew, 
and Nelson. Aaron became a physician and formerly practised in Cort- 
land Co., N. Y. Amelia married a Schermerhorn. 

Eleazer Hawley, from Norfolk, a clock -maker, is first on the list of 
this year. He lived and raised a family in a now-abandoned house at the 
top of the hill, above the Woodruff tannery, near the crossing of the Old 
Country and North Wain Street roads. He died April 1, 1839, aged 47, 
leaving, among other children, Romulus and George, none of whom re- 
main in the town. 

John Maltbie came into the society a single man, and married, in 
1812, Deborah, daughter of Reuben Scovill, and had children whose 
names are not, ascertained. He bought, in IS 1-1, the place, as is believed, 
now owned by Jonathan Gilbert, on South Street, where he died Aug. 17, 

1827, aged 42. 

Darius Turrell, a clock maker, lived in the Stephen Rowley house 
on North Main street until about 1840. He had daughters, Betsey A. and 
Ann, and may have had other children. His first wife died in March, 

1828, aged 30. * 



FAMILY RECORDS. 407 

Samuel Williams, a forge man from Ancrain, N. Y., lived in Win- 
sted, near Hulbert's forge, from 1811 until about 1810, and raised a fam- 
ily of children, among them two sons, Samuel and John. He served in 
the war of 1812. 

1812. 

Danikl Albro learned the tanner's trade in Winsted, and came of 
age this year. He lived in the town until about 1836. He married in 
February. 1811, Nancy Westlake, and had several children — among 
them, Edward and Henry. He was living at Windsor Locks in 1871. 

Nathan Champion came from Middlesex County this year, and 
began casting flock bells, to which he afterwards added other castings, 
and was the only iron founder in the town until after 1833. Pie owned 
and occupied during his later life, the dwelling on North Main street, 
next north of the new graded school building. He died at a good old 
age, early in 1868, after a blameless and exemplary life. 

His wife, Mary, died August 28, 1843, aged 60. They had a son, 
Henry S., now living in Bridgeport; and daughters, Sarah C, who 
married September 24, 1840, William R. Richardson of Bristol; Julia, 
who died October 18, 1826; Lucy A., who married, January 20, 1836, 
Lucius Skinner, and Lucinda, recently married. 

William Green Iron: Salisbury, a forgeman, came to Winsted this 
year, and worked during most of his after life in Cook's Iron Works, in 
the east village. He raised a family, some of whom now reside here, 
and died in the town. 

Christopher Lyon, a joiner, became a resident this year. He built 
and occupied until his death, the house on North Main street now 
occupied by Roswell Pond. He married Clarissa, daughter of Theodore 
Hoskin. He died August, 5, 1844, aged 56, and she died February 22, 
1867, aged 77. They had a, daughter, Ivoxana, married, October !'.», 
1824, Aaron W. Crane, and another daughter, Eunice, married October 
2, 183!), Benjamin Johnson. 

Geoi.Ge Sage, a mason, this year became an inhabitant of the 
Society, and lived, until his removal to the west about, 1828, on the 
east side of South street, now Torrington line. No record of his family 
is found. 

1813. 
William Caul, an iron refiner, from Ancram, N. Y., came to Winsted 
this year, and worked in the different forges most of the intervening 
time, until his death, at the Insane Retreat, Hartford, in dune, 1828. 



408 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

He married — Culver, and had children: James M., William, Ann 
E., who married, June 2, 1847, Frederick Murray, and another daughter, 
who married Hervey V. Blake. 

David Marble, from Sutton, Mass., a mason, came here this year. 
In 1816 he built the Win. S. Holabird house, at the north end of the 
cast village park, and there resided some five-years, when he deserted his 
wife, and went to Louisiana, and probably died there. He married, 
December 15, 1814, Pamela Wheeler, who is now (1872) living. They 
raised no children. 

Joseph W. Hurlbut, son of Martin of Winchester, appears on this 
year's list. He inherited the farm of his father, on the east side of Long 
Lake, on which he still resides ; has been an honored deacon of the 
Congregational Church since 1836. He married, April 25, 1817, Sarah, 
daughter of Stephen Merrill of Barkhamsted. She died Oct., 1864. 

CHILDREN. 
I. James Martin, b. January 5, 1818; d. August 14, 1847, aura. 

II. Joseph Merrill, b. September 28, 1824 ; m. June 2, 1869, Anna 
Augusta Field. 

III. Warren Phineas, b. January 4, 1827; resident of Winsted. 

IV. William Flowers, b. January 27, 1835; a member of the Litchfield 

County bar, and now resident in Winsted. 

Doctor Henry Noble from Vermont, a physician, came here this 
or the preceding year, as a practitioner. He married the same year, 
Susan, daughter of Benjamin Jenkins, who died January 14, 1815, aged 
22, when he left the state. By his wife he had one son, James 
Dwioiit, baptized November 6, 1814; supposed to be still living. 

George Roberts from Torringford, became a resident this year. 
He lived during his later years on the east side of the Still River, in the 
first house north of Green Woods turnpike bridge, where he died in 
1867 or 1868, when past seventy years of age. He married — Judd, 
who died before him. They had a son, Edavard J., and two or three 
daughters. 

Horace Reynolds, a blacksmith, came here this year, and resided, 
with his family, mainly in the east village, until his removal to Illinois 
about 1835. lie was for some years a partner with Thomas R. Bull in 
the old Jenkins Scythe Works, on the site of the Winsted Manufacturing 
Co.'s Works, and then owned and occupied the Byington house on North 
Main street, lie had a wife and children, of whom we find no record. 

1814. 
Samuel Baktlett, a native of Cohassett, Mass., came from Malone, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 409 

N. Y., to Winsted, and built and occupied until his removal from the 
town, the Widow Marble house, on the east side of the east village park. 
He removed, with his family, to Wayne County, Pennsylvania. His 
Avife was sister to Benjamin Jenkins. His children, resident with him 
here, were his son, Arah, and his daughters, Riioda, Amanda, and 
others whose names are not remembered. 

James C. Cleveland, son of Rufus of Barkhamsted, first appears on 
this year's list. He was for many years a clockmaker in the employ of 
Riley Whiting. In 1810 he built the house on the east side of the east 
village park, which he has continued to occupy to the present time 
(1872). He married (1st), Belinda Miller, by whom he had a son, 
Charles, who died unmarried ; (2d), Sally Taylor, who died childless, 
December 27, 1819, aged 28; (3d), Lucy Northrup, still living (1872), 
by whom he had Jane, born July 21, 1821, who married, May 11, 
1842, Charles H. Blake. 

Lewis McDonald from Waterbury, a shoemaker, lived in Winsted 
from 1813 to 1818, when he moved westward, and in 1871 was living in 
Illinois. He married, about 1817, Betsey, daughter of Asher Rowley. 

Joel Miller, son of Asahel of Winchester, an ingenious mechanic, 
and an exemplary and earnest Christian, lived in Winsted until his 
death, about 1820. He married a daughter of Grove Pinney, Escp, of 
Colebrook ; had no children. 

Dr. Luman Wakefield, born in Colebrook, August 29, 1787, studied 
medicine with Dr. Aaron Moore, and tins or the preceding year commenced 
practice with his teacher in Winsted. Dr. Moore dying in 1813, he suc- 
ceeded to an extensive practice, which he retained and enlarged until he 
became disabled for active professional duties by a slow palsy which ter- 
minated his life, March 20, 1850, at the age of 63. He owned and lived 
in a house on the site of Charles B. Hallett's present residence, on the 
east side of the east village park, which was burned down shortly after 
his decease. He was a man of equable temperament, and a thorough 
knowledge of human nature, which gave him a controlling influence in the 
community, and secured to him the strong attachment of many friends. 
As a successful practitioner, he was aided by sound judgment and close 
observation, more than by high scientific attainments, lie was a supporter 
of good order, a decided friend and advocate of the temperance reform, 
and in later lite became a consistent member of the Congregational church. 
lie was born at Colebrook, Aug. 29, 1787 ; m. Betsy, daughter of Elijah 
Rockwell, Esq., of Colebrook, born Feb. 18, 1789. She died Oct. 2:1, ■ 
1831. 

52 



410 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



CHILDREN. 

I. Julia W., b. Oct. 1, 1815 ; m., May 23, 1839, Eli T. Wilder, Esq. 

II. Elizabeth A., b. m., Oct. 1, 1831, Normand Adams. 

III. Lucy C, b. March 24, 1820; m., May 28, 1840, Wm. H. Phelps. 

IV. John Luman, b. May 25, 1823 ; grad. M. D. Yale College, 1847. 

V. James Beach, b. March 21, 1825 ; grad. A. B. Trinity College, Hartford. 

A judge of supreme court in Minnesota. 
VI. Mary H., b. Sept. 7, 1827; m., Sept. 21, 1852, Richard H. Yale; d. 

at New Orleans, La., Sept. 22, 1858. 

He married (2d), March 12. 1840, Ann (Tolbert), widow of Ambrose 
Fyler; she d. Sept. 24, 1867, aged 75. 

Lucius Clarke, son of Captain Lemuel, came with his father from 
Whately, Mass., in 1807, and appears on this year's tax list. In 1813 
or 1814, he formed a partnership with Nathaniel B. Gaylord in mercan- 
tile business, which was continued until his removal to Monroe Co., N. Y., 
about 1818, where he went into trade, first at Carthage, at the foot of the 
Genesee Falls, and then in the village of Rochester. He returned to 
Winsted in 1824, and in company with Samuel Boyd, opened anew store 
on the site of Woodford's Block in the West Village. In 1827, he bought 
the Hinsdale store, on the site of Camp's Block, in which he traded until 
his removal to Massachusetts, in 1834; whence he returned in 1841, and 
purchased of the widow of Riley Whiting the clock factory in the East 
Village with which he was connected in business until 1845, when he 
purchased real estate on the flat, between the East and West Villages, and 
thereafter contributed more largely than any other person to the building 
up of that section of the now consolidated borough. He was the prime 
mover and one of the most efficient promoters of the measures which se- 
cured the extension of the Naugatuck Railroad from Waterbury to Win- 
sted. He was an upright and correct man of business, energetic and hard- 
working, but versatile to a degree that impeded the complete success of 
some of his enterprises. As a citizen, he was right minded, public spirited, 
and deservedly popular. He served as state senator in 1846, and died 
Dec. 29, 1863, aged 73. His family record is given in connection with 
that of his father, Capt. Lemuel Clarke. 

Alpha Rowley, son of Ebenezer of Winchester, appears on the list 
of this year. He became the owner of his father's farm on South street 
in 1835, and there resided until his removal to western New York in 
1838. He studied law for a time, but was never called to the bar except 
:is a defendant. He died in September, 1872, while an inmate of the 
Utica Insane Hospital. 








c 



C^^l^c^i/ 




AND FAMILY RECORDS. 411 

1815. 

Halsey Bailey, a blacksmith from Barkhamsted, lived in Winsted 
from 1814 to 1829, when he moved to central New York. He married, 
, , Mira, daughter of Ebenezer Rowley. 

Silas Burton, son of John of Winchester, first appears on the list of 
this year. He married Lucia, daughter of Asahel Miller, and lived here 
until 1818, when he removed to Erie, Pa. 

Orrin Cleveland, son of Rufus of Barkhamsted, a school-master, 
lived in the town, mainly in Winsted, from 1815 to about 1830. He had 
a wife and family of children, one of whom became the second wife of the 
late Grant Thorburn. 

Shubael Crowe, from New Hartford, this year built, in company 
with Horatio G. Hale, of Burlington, a carriage maker's shop on the site 
of John T. Rockwell's tannery, which they carried on about two years, 
when he left the town. 

Reuben Hall, a shoemaker from New Haven, came to Winsted this 
year. In company with David Edwards, he built, and for several years 
occupied the house nearly opposite the old Methodist meeting-house 
building. He removed to Fayetteville, N. C, about 1825, returning in 
1831, and continued his residence here until his removal to Ohio in 1835. 
If living he now resides in Illinois. He was a man of kindly nature, a 
pillar and class leader of the Methodist Church, a neighbor of the Good 
Samaritan order. No record of his family is found. His wife was a 
Ward from Cornwall. They had a son, Truman B., who married, May 
21, 1836, Fanny M. Wood; and one or more daughters. 

David Munson, from Colebrook, removed to the farm bordering on 
Colebrook line, lately owned by George A. Marvin, deceased, and occu- 
pied it until his removal to the West, about 1830. 

Ansel Shattuck, about this time, built a small house on the west side 
of South street, in which he lived until 1829. No record of his family is 
found. 

1810. 
Sheldon Kinney, from Washington, Conn., this year, or earlier, came 
to Winsted, and carried on the tailoring trade for ten or fifteen years. He 
built and occupied, until 1825, the house next north of the East Village 
meeting-house, after which he removed to Colebrook for a few years ; and 
on his return bought the house on the south side of Main street in which 
he now (1872) resides. He has sons, Francis, Sheldon, Jr., of Windsor, 



412 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

and George W., who married, Dec. 4, 1849, Betsey C. Brown; and a 
daughter, Charlotte M., who married, May 19, 1856, Charles H. Knapp. 

Capt. Stephen Fyler, son of Stephen of Torrington, this year bought 
the form on South street recently owned in part by his son, Albro Fyler, 
on which he lived until his death on the 21st of April, 1853, at the age 
of seventy -three. He was descended, in the sixth generation, from Lieut. 
Walter Fyler, who came from England to Dorchester on the ship Mary 
and John, in 1 630, through his son Zerubabel, 2 born Windsor, Dec. 23, 
1644, and his son Zerubabel, 3 born Windsor, Dec. 25, 1674, and his son 

Silas, 4 born Windsor, , 1710, and his son Stephen, 5 born May 

27, 1755. He (Stephen, Jr.) was born Torrington, March 6, 1780; 
married, October, 1803, Armira Wilson, of Torrington ; he died April 21, 
1853 ; she died Dec. 27, 1866, aged 87. 

CHILDREN. 
I. Hilemon, b. Aug. 8, 1804; m., April 23, 1850, Charlotte Hamilton. 

II. Sophronia, b. Oct. 9, 1806; m., July, 1832, William Sanford, who died 
Nov. 7, 1838. Child : Jane, m., Oct. 15, 1860, George M. Wentworth. 
Children: 1. George S., b. Feb. 20, 1864; 2. Frank L., b. Sept. 
20, 1866; 3. Minnie, b. Aug. 12, 1868, d. Sept. 2, 1868; 4. Arthur 
M., b. Sept. 22, 1869, d. Aug. 9, 1870; 5. Alice M.,b. Jan. 29, 1871. 

III. Albro, b. m., June 23, 1850, Jane E. Kinney. 

IV. Mason Wilson, b. Oct. 7, 1810; m., Munson. 

Harry Bishop, Leveritt Bishop, and Seth Bishop, brothers, from 
Litchfield, came to Winsted this season. Harry owned a place on Wal- 
len's Hill, in which he lived until about 1830, and afterwards moved to 
Colebrook. Leveritt died here August 1, 1852, aged 67. He had two 
sons, Edward and William, formerly residing here, and perhaps other 
children. 

Seth Bishop married, , , Minerva, daughter of Nathan 

Wheeler, by wbom he had a son, Seth, Jr., now (1872) living at Collins- 
ville, and a daughter, Minerva W., who married, April 22, 1841, Wil- 
liam S. Bunnel, now residing in Winsted. Minerva, wife of Seth, Sen., 
died July 1, 1826, aged 35. He now (1872) resides in Barkhainsted. 

Jehial Coe, son of Jonathan, 3 came of age this year and first lived on 
Spencer Hill for a few years, and has since lived on his fotber's form on 
Coe street to the present time (1872). His family record is already 
given in connection with that of his forefathers. 

Willard Holmes, son of Joseph, is on the list of this year. He re- 
sided with his father (on Spencer street) until his death, and continued to 
occupy the paternal homestead until the morning of Feb. 22, 1857, when 
he was burned up with his house while attempting to save his papers from 
the flames. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 413 

He was a man of superior culture, of strong mind and sincere piety. 
He formed his opinions deliberately and independently, and carried them 
out with unswerving rectitude. Modest and retiring in his disposition, he 
would hardly have been known beyond the circle of his immediate neigh- 
bors, but for his early advocacy of the cause of the slave, and his fearless 
persistency amid reproach and contumely, in asserting the radical princi- 
ples of liberty and duty. His family record is given in connection with 
that of his father. 

Henry B. Crowe, from New Hartford, succeeded his brother Shubael 
in the part ownership of the carriage shop in the West Village, and after 
some years became owner of the Joseph Mitchell place in the East Village, 

where he died after 1856. He married, : , , Nancy, daughter 

of Amasa Mallory, Sr., and had a highly respected family of children, of 
whom we have no record except the baptism of Henry, Luther, Jane, 
and James on the 4th of July, 1828. 

1817. 

Chester Soper, from Windsor, a clothier, this year came to Winsted 
and bought the clothier's works in the East Village, erected by Ansel 
Wilson, and the house that then stood on the site of James T. Norton's 
present residence. He converted the clothier's works into a Woolen Mill, 
which he carried on until about 1838:' soon after which he removed to 
Windsor, and has since died. His wife was a Welles from Wethersfield. 
They had no children. 

1818. 
Wheelocic Thayer came from Vermont this year and commenced 
work as a scythe maker in the West Village. In 1820, he became con- 
nected with James Boyd in the scythe business, under the firm name of 
Boyd & Thayer, which was continued until 1832, when he built the scythe 
works on Mad river now owned by his (laughter, Mrs. Julia A. Bachellor, 
which he continued to operate until a few years before his death. He 
bought the " Deacon Rockwell house," then on the site of the Beardsley 
house in 1830, in which he resided until his purchase of the house now 
owned by his daughter, Mrs. Julia A. Bachellor, in which he resided 
until his death. He was a man of sanguine temperament and indomi- 
table energy. By industry, frugality, and judicious investments, he rap- 
idly accumulated a large estate. Democratic in politics and a univer- 
salist in doctrine, he advocated the faith that was in him with untiring 
zeal, and exerted a powerful influence in the community: an influence 
that favored the temperance reform ami recognized the colored man as 
a human being endowed with the rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness." 



414 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

With failing health he retired from active business in 1854, and died 
Sept. 23, 1857, aged 67. 

He was born in Northbridge, Mass., May 10, 1790, and married, Nov. 
28, 1816, Clarissa Fuller, born at Brookfield, Mass., May 9, 1795, who 
died Feb. 16, 1829. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Julia Ann, b. at Weston, Mass., Aug. 17, 1817 ; m. Aug. 3, 1835, William 
G. Bachellor, who d. Dec. 15, 1844, aged 33. Children: 1. Wheelock 
Thayer ; 2. William G. 

II. Charlotte, b. July 22, 1819; d. July 28, 1821. 

III. Harriet, b. July 22, 1822 ; m. Sept. 10, 1840, Seth L. Wilder ; d. childless 
Sept. 10, 1840. 
He died June 23, 1857. He married 2d, Nancy Joslin, who died 
childless, February 26, 1855, aged 71. 

Daniel G. Tuttle, from Toningford, this year built the house on 
South street, bordering on Torrington line, lately owned by his son-in- 
law, Lucius J. Woodford, — which he occupied until his death, March 4, 
1844, at the age of 58. He married, Clarissa, daughter of 

Daniel C. Hudson of Torrington. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Fanny M., m. Dec. 31, 1835, Charles Seldon. 

II. Catharine, m. Lucius J. Woodford; d. Jan. 5, 1872. 

III. George H. 

IV. Lamphier B., m. Sept. 14, 1841, Charlotte, daughter of Jchiel Coe. 
V. James H., m. May 26, 1841, Cordelia, daughter of Erastus Woodford. 

VI. Ruth O., d. Nov. 4, 1859, aged 36. 

Jesse Williams, from Colebrook, resided here some three years of 
his minority, and appears on the list of this year. He purchased the 
Eben Coe house, on Spencer street, in which he now resides. It may 
safely be said that no man in the town has exceeded him in hard and diffi- 
cult labor. If there was an ugly job to be done, he was the man to do it 
effectually, with a calculating head and a giant's strength. Labor seemed 
never to weary him, nor age to impair his physical powers, until partial 
blindness within the past three years has compelled him to hold up and 
look back on a life well spent, in the enjoyment of health, and a compe- 
tency of worldly goods. As a Constable and Sheriff's Deputy he was pre- 
pared for every emergency. For some forty years he has been, and con- 
tinues to be, the honored Tyler of St. Andrew's Lodge. 

He married (1st), Sept. 14, 1825, Roxana Hurlbut, who died Sept. 
9, 1832, aged 37. He married (2d), May 4, 1833, Mabel Wright, of 
Cornwall. 

CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE. 
I. Henry, b. Dec. 25,1826. 

II. Sylvia, b. Jan. 28, 1829 ; m. Rev. Wm. B. Osborn. 

III. Annie R., b. Jan. — , 1831 ; m. Lyman J. Parsons. 




r .'<- ;;' &tfe&u«, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 415 

CHILD BY SECOND WIFE. 
IV. Jane, b. April — , 1835; m. Henry Case. 

1818. 

Nisus Kinney, a native of Colebrook, was brought up in the family 
of Grinnell Spencer. lie appears on the list of this year and still re- 
sides in the town. He built the house on the west side of Spencer street, 
a little north of Amos Pierce, from which he moved after a few years to 
the old Elihu Rockwell house, still further north, where he resided until 
about 1860. He lived in Torrington from 1864 to 1868, and has since 
resided here. 

He married Sally, daughter of Adin Wakefield, of Colebrook, who 
died Sept. 28, 1856, aged 57. They had a son, Andrew ; and daughters, 
Sarah J., who died July 22, 1848, aged 17. Jane E., who married, June 
23, 1850, Albro Fyler ; Harriet, who married, Jan. 14, 1851, Lucius L. 
Culver; and Susan W., married, Dec. 25, 1861, Luther G. Hinsdale; 
and they may have had other children. 

1819. 

Silas Hoskin, son of Theodore, appears on the list of this year. He 
owned and occupied, from 18"14 to his death, Sept. 0, 1870, at the age of 
72, the Benjamin Whiting place on Coe street. He married, Oct. 13, 
1823, Priscilla, daughter of Ransford Bailey, of Groton, Conn. 

children. 

I. Ransford Bailey, b. June 24, 1825; d. Oct. 17, 1828. 
II. Trdman Silas, r>. March 23, i827. 

III. Theodore Bailey^ b. April 26, 1829. 

IV. Thomas Coe, b. March 15, 1831. 
V. Erastus, !>. April 9, 1833. 

VI. Chas. Sherman, 1>. Feb. 4, 1835. 
VII. George, b. " 5,1837. 

Eltas Rowley, son of Asher, is on the list of this year. Ho first 
occupied his father's homestead on South street, and about 1845 erected 
his present residence on the Wolcottville road, south of the burying- 
ground. (See his family record in connection with that of his father.) 

Nelson Wilson, son of Abijah, Jr., appears on the list of this year, 
After marriage he lived until 1830 on Spencer street, and thereafter, 
while he remained in the State, on Coe street, adjoining the Cole- 
brook line. After 1845 he removed to Saratoga County, N. Y., where 



416 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

he died Nov. 21, 1851. He married, Wealthy, daughter of 

Jonathan Coe, Esq., by whom he had 

CHILDREN. t 

I. George C, m. Caroline Miles ; d. March 

8, 1854, aged 33. 

II. Charles C, d. May 20, 1847. 

III. Harriet E., m. Alexander C. Thompson ; 

d. Jan. 7, 1855, aged 23, childless. 

IV. Henry W., d. Oct 19, 1836. 

Norman Spencer, from New Hartford, served his apprenticeship as 
a tanner with Col. Hosea Hinsdale, and thereafter owned and carried on 
the tannery built by Horace Ranney, near the Cook Forge, on North 
Main street, until 1834, when he removed to Michigan, and died there. 

He married, about 1820, Nancy Hinsdale, sister of Col. Hosea, by 
whom he had several children, — among them Richard, who returned to 
Winsted after his father's removal, and resided here until about 1855. 

During this decade our second war with England occurred. The 
dominant sentiment of our people was opposed to the war, though it had 
many and ardent supporters among us. Party spirit raged with a 
bitterness never exceeded in subsequent periods. Singularly enough, the 
Federalists were the states'-rights party of that period. They loved the 
English and hated the French. They found unconstitutional encroach- 
ments in almost every measure of the national administration. They 
discouraged enlistments into the army, and insisted on the entire control 
of the drafted militia by state officers, and in order to sustain this asserted 
right, the governor of this state went to New London when the militia 
were called to the defence of that place in order to out-rank, as captain- 
general, the United States officer then and there in command. 

The state flag was then the supreme object of Federal worship. 
Liberty poles, bearing aloft the stars and stripes, were repeatedly cut 
down by unknown parties. On a training day in 1814, on the east 
village green, the national flag was unexpectedly hoisted on a newly- 
erected liberty pole during the parade of a company of recently-organ- 
ized state ti*oops, and an infantry and a, cavalry company of militia. 
The captains of the three companies ordered the flag to be taken down. 
The sturdy Democrats rallied around it, with the revived and concen- 
trated spirit of '76. The three companies were formed in line, and 
marched up to the pole to disperse its defenders. A melee was brought 
on by one of the defenders, Eli Marshall by name, seizing with the grip 
of a bull dog the throat of the axman who was about to cut down the 
pole. It took some minutes to detach the democratic fingers from the 
federal throat, and at this crisis, the fence passing near the foot of the 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 417 

pole, and loaded with lookers-on, came down with a crash that induced a 
momentary panic of the contending parties, and a partial breaking of the 
military ranks. Though no one was hurt by this catastrophe, the white 
feather became manifest, ami the military force becoming essentially disor- 
ganized, was marched off without the honors of war, and the star- 
spangled banner continued to wave until sunset. 

A review of the dissensions of that period, and the results growing out 
of them, is highly instructive. 

The war, though perhaps unwisely declared, and feebly carried on, 
until the latest campaigns, was successfully closed. Our navy acquired 
immortal honor, and our army, long mismanaged and badly oiiicered, 
finally retrieved its credit. The final disaster fell on the party which, 
though perhaps rightly opposed to the declaration of war, not only failed 
to stand by the government in carrying it on, but arrayed itself against 
all its measures, and almost paralyzed its energies. It bore, a load of 
popular odium that in a few years so utterly broke it down that no 
'•departure" could retrieve it. The lesson is an instructive one. to 
modern politicians. 

The number of soldiers recruited in this town for the regular army was 
very limited. Most of them entered a regiment that served, without a 
battle or skirmish, at New London through the whole war. The only 
two officers commissioned from this town, Colonel Samuel Hoadley and 
Captain Riley Sweet, belonged to this regiment.* 

A few Winsted soldiers were enlisted into the 25th U. S. Regiment, 
that was cut to pieces on the Niagara frontier, and but few, if any of 
them, ever returned. 

Detachments of militia were from time to time drafted to serve at 
New London, and Captain Luther Hoadly was called out to command 
one of the detached companies, and died in the service. One of the ten 
companies of state troops, as they were called, organized by the state 
legislature, and composed of about ecpial numbers of Winchester, Bark- 
hamsted, and New Hartford men, was also called out for service at New 
London. 

Prior to the war, our manufacturing interests were in a healthy ami 
prosperous condition, and the growth of our two villages, though slow, 
was healthy. The war stimulated manufacturing 10 a high degree of 
activity by its high tariff of duties, and the almost entire exclusion of 
British manufactured goods. Old establishments were enlarged, and 
pushed to their utmost capacity, and many new manufacturing enter- 

* The. late General Edmund Kirby of the U. S. Army received his Ensign's com- 
mission while a clerk in Winsted, and served on the Canada frontier with distin- 
guished honor, lie belonged in Litchfield. 
53 



418 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

prises were started and pushed forward without experience or economy. 
Prices of farm products and manufactured articles were enormously 
inflated by the suspension of specie payments, and the enormous issues of 
hank bills. Our community shared largely in the apparent prosperity 
induced by these causes, and suffered proportionally by the collapse 
induced by the return of peace, attended as it was by the contraction of 
bank issues preparatory to a return to specie payments, the paying off of 
improvident indebtedness, and the flooding of the country with British 
fabrics, at prices below the cost of the raw materials used by our own 
infant establishments. 

The results, though less ruinous to Winsted than to many other manu- 
facturing communities, were seriously felt for many succeeding years. 
The wire factory in the east village, employing a large number of hands, 
was at once and forever abandoned. Two establishments for making 
hand and machine cards soon followed. The cut-nail factory of Mr. 
Byington, then employing more men than any other establishment in 
town, soon after went down. The woollen factory of the Rockwell 
Brothers continued to run, though at a heavy loss, through long years of 
depression. Only two of the scythe establishments moved forward. 
The iron works, then the heaviest interest in the place, were saved from 
utter prostration by a limited sale to the government of iron for gun- 
making at the Springfield Armory. Cheese, the staple farm product, 
went down from ten to five cents per pound, and other articles in the 
same proportion. One " breathing hole of hell," in the form of a whisky 
distillery, of fungous growth, had just begun its polluting career on the 
slope of Wallen's Hill, above the clock factory, which, by the mercy of 
God, was so utterly prostrated that not a trace of its existence is left. 

"The cold summer" of 1816 added to the gloom of this period. The 
spring was cold and backward, and the summer cold and dry. Frosts 
prevailed in every month of the year. The mowing lands yielded less 
than half an average crop. Scarcely an ear of corn in the town came to 
maturity. Potatoes were few and small, and dairy products w< re as 
scant in quantity as low in price. Much apprehension prevailed of a 
famine winter, which was measurably averted by a provident planting of 
turnips, when it was perceived that other crops were to fail. This crop 
was large, and thereby the lack of hay was partly made good in winter- 
ing such stock as was not killed or sold off in the preceding fall. 

This cause, combined with the prostration of our manufacturing 
interest, drove large numbers of farmers and artisans to seek means of 
support in the new settlements of the west. Not until 1820 did business 
begin to assume a lively aspect, and prosperous growth become 
manifest. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 419 

The dwellings and other buildings erected within the borough limits 
during this decade were as follows : — 

1811. 

The iron forge of Reuben Cook & Co., on the site of the present 
works of Charles and John R. Cook, together with two or three forge- 
men's houses. 

The scythe shop built by Mr. Jenkins on the site of the Strong 
Manufacturing Co.'s Works, east village. 

A clothier's shop on the site of the Winsted Carriage Company's 
buildings, recently burned down. 

The Wakefield homestead (burned down), on the site of C. B. 
Hallett's present residence. 

1812. 
The Luther Hoadley dwelling, north of the R. L. Beecher house, and 
nearly opposite the clock factory. 

The Jesse Williams homestead, on Spencer street, built by Eben Coe. 

1813. 

The Bissell Hinsdale house, built on the site of the Second Congrega- 
tional Church, and about 1855 moved by Dr. James Welch to the 
adjoining lot on the north. 

The Rockwell grist mill and woollen factory buildings on Lake street, 
burned up in 1835, and not rebuilt. 

The grammar schoolhouse on Main street, next north of Forbes' 
furniture store. 

A wire factory was erected by Samuel and Luther Hoadley and James 
Boyd, on the west wing of the clock factory dam, one of the first in the 
United States wherein the wire was broken down from the rod, and 
reduced to the finest fibre. While the war with England continued it 
prospered, but it had to be abandoned when peace was restored, and 
foreign wire began to be again imported. 

1814. 

The Solomon Rockwell house, corner of Lake and Prospect streets. 

The widow Marble house, on east side of east village park, built by 
Samuel Bartlett. 

The Hulsey Burr scythe shop, on the site of works on North Main 
street, now owned by Frederick Woodruff. 

The Oliver Loomis house ou Main street, built by Romanta Woodford. 

The oil mill on Mad River, near the south wing of Clifton mill dam, 
torn down about 1830. 



420 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



1815. 

The James C. Cleveland house, on east side of east village park, built 
by Mr. Cleveland and Arah Bartlett. 

A carriage works, on the site of John T. Rockwell's tannery, built by 
Shubael Crowe, and converted into a store by Coe & Hubbell, about 
18 i0, and since removed. 

The Widow David Coe house, on Spencer street, nearly opposite the 
old Methodist meeting-house, built by Reuben Hall. 

The James Boyd & Son iron store, on Main street, now remodeled as 
a furniture store, occupied by S. B. Forbes & Co. 

A whisky distillery, on Wallen's Hill road, some eighty rods east of 
the clock factory. 

1816. 

The " Holabird House," opposite the Episcopal Church, now owned 
by Henry Bills, was built by David Marble. 

The house of A. L. Weirs, next north of the east village Congrega- 
tional meeting-house, was built by Sheldon Kinney, sen. 

By the return of peace, the reduction of tariff duties, and the renewed 
importation of foreign fabrics, almost every branch of domestic manufac- 
ture was prostrated; and as a consequence, building operations in a great 
measure ceased during the remainder of this decade. The only building 
erected in the interval seems to have been a tannery erected by Horace 
Ranney at the south corner of North Main and Cook streets, which was 
abandoned as a tannery before 1860, since which the main building has 
been converted into a double tenement house. 

The system of taxation having been radically changed in 1819, we com- 
pile for comparison abstracts of the Assessment Lists of 1810 and 1818, 
as follows : 





1810. 


1820. 


ITEMS. 


No. 


• Amount. 


No. 


Amount. 


Polls between 21 and 70, at $60.00 
18 " 21 " • . . 30.00 

Oxen, "... 10.00 

Neat cattle, " . • 7.00 
" " "... .3.34 

Horses, "... 10.00 
"... 7.00 

Acres of land, " . . . 1.67 
" " " "... 1.34 
" " "... 84 
" " " "... 34 
" " " "... 17 
" " " "... 09 


103 

11 

119 

388 

102 

78 

2 

298 

1,046 

51 

2,226 

2,123 

1,782 




83 

10 

88 

349 

38 

66 

2 

388 

1,164 

63 

2,716 

2,016 

1.718 





AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



421 



Chaises, at . 


30.00 


o 




2 




" < 




. 20.00 


6 




6 




Silver watches, ' 




10.00 


13 




2 




Brass clocks, 




. 20.00 


2 




1 




Wooden clocks, 




7.00 


36 




67 




Fire places, or smokes, ' 




5.00 
3.75 
2.50 
1.25 


4 

18 
64 
69 




6 

33 

81 

151 




Stores, ' 




. 20.00 
10.00 


2 





3 
1 




Money at interest, .... 






$ 275.00 


250 


$ 250.00 


Assessments of trades, . 






1,417.00 




1,860.00 


Bank stock, 










2,500.00 


Net amount after deducting abatements 






13,474.03 




16,292.68 


Net Amount of Old Society, 






17,398.32 




18,057.64 




$30,272.35 


$34,350.28 


Highway tax (in labor), 3 per cent., 






926.17 




1,030.51 


Town tax (current expenses), 5 percent 


■> 




1,54:! 62 




1,717.51 






$2,409.79 


$2,748.02 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

NEW COMERS— FAMILY RECORDS— GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 
1821 TO 1831. 

The year 1821 opened with renewed activity, indicating a decided ren- 
ovation of prosperous business. Debts had been liquidated ; the banks 
had resumed specie payments, and expanded their issues ; and such 
branches of manufacturing as could be made remunerative, in competition 
with foreign fabrics, were resumed and actively prosecuted. 

From this time forward our increasing population was largely made 
up of individuals and families holding only temporary residences among 
us, while the ranks of leading business men were largely filled by the de- 
scendants of our pioneers. To enumerate all the new men coming on the 
stage will no longer be attempted ; and our notices will be confined to 
those who became permanent or long continued residents. 

Stephen Rowley, farmer and laud surveyor, a native of Torrington, 
this year came to Winsted 1'rom Colebrook, and owned the Abijah Wil- 
son, Jr., farm, on the old North road, until 1842, when he bought and 
occupied until his death, in 1856, a house on the east side of North Main 
street, next south of Lucius Griswold's. lie died, childless, leaving a 
widow, Roxy (Whiting), now (1872) living. 

Horace W. House, from Windsor, came to Winsted in 1821, and 
engaged in trade and manufacturing with N. B. Gaylord. He built the 
brick house on Main street, now owned by Normand Adams, in 1823, 
which he occupied until his removal back to Windsor in 1828, where he 
died, childless, about 1870. 

1822. 

Elisha A. Morgan, from New London County, bought in 1822, 
the William E. Cowles farm, on Colebrook line, which he exchanged for 



FAMILY RECORDS. 423 

the Higley Tavern in the West village, in 1827, and lived there until his 
removal out of the State in 1829. He had a wife, but no children. 

Riley Smith, son of Theodore and Rhoda, this year bought his home- 
stead on the old north road, above the Woodruff tannery, on which he 
resided until his death, June 5, 1865, aged 70. He married, Nov. 9, 
1826, Emily Cadwell, of VV\, by whom he had two sons, James R., and 
Hiram C, now (1872) resident in Riverton. She died Sept. 15, 1855, 
aged 54, and he married (2d), Dec. 25, 1865, Sarah Loomis, of Windsor, 
who died childless, Dec. 25, 1865. He died June 14, 1865, aged 68. 



1823. 

Samuel Boyd, son of James and Mary, of Winchester, in 1823 
erected the original store on the site of Woodford's brick block, and en- 
tered into trade in company with his brother-in-law, Lucius Clarke, under 
the firm name of Clark & Boyd. In 1824 he built the E. S. Woodford 
homestead. In 1827, Mr. Clarke withdrew, and soon after Samuel W. Coe 
was associated with him for two or three years, after which E. W. Bronson 
came into the concern, which turned its attention to the manufacture of 
hoes, shovels, and other tools. The business was wound up in 1833, and 
Mr. Boyd removed to New Orleans, where he resided until 1850 ; soon after 
which he went into the hardware business in New York, and subse- 
quently became an Appraiser in the Custom-House, which office he still 
holds. His family record is given in connection with that of his father. 



1824. 

Asaph Pease, originally from Sandisfield, came to Winsted from 
Colebrook in 1824, and owned and occupied until 1848 the old Doolittle 
, on the east side of North Main street, opposite the clock factory 
dam, and which was subsequently taken down and re-erected on a new 
street turning westerly from North Main street. In the latter year he 
moved to New Britain, where he died Dec. 12, 1856, aged 80, his wile 
surviving him. He married, Feb. <!, 1805, Clotilda Hoyt, born June 1, 
1777. 

CHILDREN. 

I. Led mas, b. Colebrook, May 9, 1806 ; d. aged 2 years. 

II. Mary Clotilda, b. " Nov. 15, 1808. 

III. Leumas Hoyt, b. " Jan. 20, 1811 ; graduate of Williams Col- 
lege, 1835; minister of the gospel, now (1872) located at Ni w Orleans 
as Chaplain of Seamen's Friend Society; unmarried. 



424 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

IV. Julius Walter, 1). Colebrook, May 19, 1814; m. April 1, 1849, Mary 
Hotchkiss. Has 

CHILDREN. 

1. Leunias Hoyt, b. Jan. 20, 1845. 

2. Martha Francis, b. Nov. 28, 1S45. 

3. Julius Hotchkiss, b. July 7, 1849; d. Sept. 13, 1847. 
I. Julius Hotchkiss, b. Nov. 22, 1848. 

5. William Walter, b. Nov. 3, 1850. 

6. Mary Emily, l> Dec. 24, 1854; d. Aug. 28, 1855. 

7. Clarence, b. Feb. 24, 1857; d. Jan. 6, 1858. 

8. Charles Wiard, b. June 18, 1859 ; d. Sept. 28, 1859. 
V. Lucv Jemima, b. April 10, 1817. 

VI. Laura Persis, b. April 22, 1824; in. Everett C. Holmes. 

Hon. William S. Holabikd, a native of Canaan, Conn., studied 
law with Hon. W. M. Bnrrall, attended the law lectures of Judge Gould 
at Litchfield, was admitted to the bar about 1820, and soon after com- 
menced practice at Colebrook, Conn., — whence he moved to Winsted 
in 1824, and soon after secured a large practice and high standing at 
the bar. 

He held the appointment of District Attorney for four years under 
President Jackson, and was Lieutenant Governor of the State in 1842 
and 1844; besides which he held the offices of Postmaster and Assignee 
in Bankruptcy. 

lie was a man of commanding person and pleasing address; as a law- 
yer he was adroit rather than learned — thorough in preparing liis cases, 
quick to discern the weak points of his adversaiy, and energetic beyond 
most men in carrying forward his cases to a final issue. The same quali- 
ties were prominent in his political career, but his success as a lawyer was 
more decided than as politician. About 1850 he withdrew from legal 
practice and devoted himself to financiering with decided success. He 
died May 22, 1855, at the age of 01. Ho married, in 182B, Adaline, 
daughter of Abijah Catlin, of Harwinton, who died Nov. 10, 1859, aged 
59. They had 

CHILDREN. 
I. John Catlin, who graduated at Weslevan University, Middletown, and d. 
in California unmd., May 2S, 1853, aged 24 years 4 mouths. 
II. Adaline, m. Henry B. Horton ; d. April 3, 1856, aged 24 years 3 months, 
leaving one child, William Holabird. 

III. Edward, m., Dec. 16, 1860, Sarah A. M. Howe; d. May 26, 1862, aged 28. 

IV. Anne, d. July 27, 1859, single, aged 22. 

V. Louise, d. July 8, 1842, aged 2 years and 9 months. 

VI. William Swift, m. May 6, 1863, Mary I. Bell. He d. Oct. 23, 1866, aged 
24. She d. May 5, 1871, aged 28. Cuild. William Swift. 

VII. LOUISE, m. Oct. 14, 1868, aged 23, Henry C. Wicker, of Chicago. 

William O. Talcott, M. D., from Killingworth, came here as a med- 
ical practitioner in 1825, and resided in the widow Marble house, on the 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 405 

east side of (he East Village park until his death, Oct. 20, 1831, at the 
age of 37. lie was a skillful and faithful physician of pleasing manner?, 
social nature and high-toned character. His death, Ivy hemorrhage of the 

lungs, was sudden, and deeply lamented. He married Elizabeth M. , 

by whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth Olmsted, baptized Nov. 0, 1831. 

Oliver Loomis, from Torrington, purchased, in 1827, the farm between 
the two lakes, on which he lived until 18-1-1, when he removed to his re- 
cent homestead on Main street, above Dudley's tannery, where lie died 
childless, Feb. 7, 1872, aged 85 years, leaving a property of neatly ten 
thousand dollars to the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which 
he was a zealous and exemplary member. 

Alaxson Loomis, son of Abiel, 1 of Winchester, in 1827 bought the 
tannery and house adjoining it on the west, which had been previously 
owned by his father, which he occupied until his sale of the same to 
George Dudley in 1832, when he moved to Sandisfield, Mass., for a few 
years, and then returned to Winsted and bought and occupied the Ebene- 
zer Rowley farm in 184.5, soon after which he removed to Fulton, Oswego 
Co., N. Y., where he now (1872) resides. His family record is given in 
connection with that of his father, Abiel Loomis, Sen. 

Henry L. Gayi.okd, originally from Torrington, came here in 1828, 
and was first associated in trading and hardware manufacturing with his 
brother, Nathaniel B. Gaylord, and afterwards with Chester Soper in 
woollen manufacturing. He owned and occupied the brick house on Main 
street, East Village, now owned by Normaml Adams. He removed to 
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1837, where he died not far from 1850, leaving a 
widow and one son, now living. He was a man of high-toned character 
and sterling worth. 

Luman Hcbbell, son of Silliman, of Winchester, a dyer by trade, and 
for several years a resident of Massachusetts, purchased in 18.'8, the 
tavern property between Camp's block and the Woodford block, and be- 
came a permanent resident. He first engaged in the manufacture of dye- 
stuffs ; and in 1831, in company with Samuel W. Coe, he went into the 
country store and produce business in a building then standing on a part 
of the site of J. T. Rockwell's tannery on Main street. Here they pros- 
ecuted a large business until, in 18-15, they erected the building known as 
the Coe store, on Main street, opposite the 1'eardsley house. The build- 
ing was nearly completed when Mr. Hubbell was suddenly taken sick and 
died within a week, on the day that had been fixed for removing their 
goods and opening their business therein. 

Mr. Hubbell was a man of great promptitude and activity, a kind 
54 



426 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

neighbor and sympathizing friend, who visited the sick and bereaved, and 
aided the destitute and unfortunate. In all measures of public improve- 
ment, he was among the foremost. His family record is given in con- 
nection with that of his father. 

The following dwellings and other buildings were, erected in Winsted 
during the decade from 1821 to 1831. 

1821. 

The Frederick Woodruff tannery on North Main street was erected by 
Horace Ranney, and was successively owned from 1824 to 1831 by Caleb 
Lewis, and then by Eli Foster, Ichabod Wood, Miles C. Burt and James 
Arault, who, in 1841, sold it to Mr. Woodruff, who, in 18C9, sold it to 
George Dudley & Son, the present owners. 

A forging and drafting shop was erected by James and James M. Boyd, 
in 1822, on Lake street, at the joining of the Lake stream and Mad 
river, which was taken down, and the present brick machine shop was 
erected on its site by John Boyd in 1853. 

1822. 
The Normand Adams house was built by Horace W. House. 

1823. 

A bark mill and tannery was built by Hosea Hinsdale on the site of 
John T. Rockwell's tannery. 

1824. 

The brick house on North Main street recently owned by the widow 
and legatees of Stejmen Rowley, deceased, was erected by Joseph B. 
Lewis, and was occupied by him until he left the town in 1834. 

The brick basement wooden house next south of the above was built 
the same or the following year by Darius Turrill and occupied by him 
until his removal from the town about 1840. 

1825. 

The E. S. Woodford house at the corner of Main and High streets 
was built by Samuel Boyd and occupied by him until his removal to New 
York in 1 834. 

"Wheelock Thayer built the small brick tenement next south of the 
Woodford place now occupied by Martin Bradford. 

The small brick tenement in front of J. T. Rockwell's tannery on Main 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 427 

street was built by Hosea Hinsdale and Ichabod Loomis, and was occupied 
in part by Col. Hinsdale as a leather store, and in part by Mr. Loomis as 
a liquor grocery, the first of these establishments in the town. It was 
burned out in 1827, leaving the walls so little injured, notwithstanding the 
explosion of a keg of powder, that it was rebuilt without taking down the 
walls. 

The house near the outlet of the lake, recently owned by Benjamin F. 
Perry, was built by "William Dexter, who occupied it until his removal 
to Illinois in 1836. 

1827. 

The '■ Upper Forge," on the site of the Winsted Manufacturing Com- 
pany's Lake street grinding works, after running thirty-three years, was 
re built in 1827 by James Boyd & Son, and operated until about 1855, 
when the manufacture of bar iron ceased to be remunerative in the old 
way of working. 

The original house on the site of Edward R. Beardsley's residence on 
Main street, was built for a tenant house, and now stands within the 
same enclosure, it having been removed by the late Seth L. Wilder to its 
present site. 

1828. 

Samuel Boyd erected the tenant house on Main street, between the 
residences of Mrs. Parke and Mrs. Eleazer Andrews. 

1829. 

Horace Higley built the house on the north side of Main street, now 
owned by Albert N. Beach, which he occupied until his removal to 
Painesville, Ohio, in 1837. This was the second dwelling erected on the 
section known as the " Flat" which then intervened between the east and 
west villages, and is now occupied by nearly a hundred stores and dwell- 
ings. 

1830. 

A wooden dwelling and brick blacksmith shop on the south side of 
Main street, nearly opposite Walnut street, were erected by Martin Dens- 
low. The blacksmith shop has since been converted into a dwelling; 
and next east of the wooden dwelling a brick dwelling was erected the 
same year by Horace Skinner. 

The dwelling house on the north side of Main street, and now owned 
by George Taylor, was erected in 1830 by William Benham ; and the 
next dwelling on the west, was erected the same year by Daniel D. 
Lamb. 

The Samuel Smith house, on the north side of Main street, was also 



428 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

erected in 1830 by Orentus Bronson, who, in succeeding years, although 
a cripple, erected about twenty dwellings in various parts of the village, 
almost unaided by any assistant help. 

The Congregational Church in the East village was remodeled in 1828 
by removing the high tub-like pulpit and its pendulous sounding-board, 
and substituting modern slips for the ancient square, pen-like pews, with 
high paneled sides. The new pulpit Avas placed at the east end of the 
audience room, and the floor had an ascending grade from the east to the 
west end. The building retained its original position on the green until 
1848, when it was removed to its present site, and so remodeled, without 
and within, as not to retain a single feature of its original construction. 

In 1828 the brick store on the corner of Main and North Main streets, 
now occupied by L. R. Norton & Company, was erected by an association 
of some fifteen individuals for an Academic School, which was first opened 
therein by Rev. Sardis B. Morley, a graduate of Williams College, as- 
sisted by Miss Treat, of Hartford, who afterwards became his wife. 

The school was continued as a public academy, under a succession of 
teachers, until 1830, when the building was purchased by Mr. Henry E. 
Rockwell, who continued the school as a private enterprise until 1817, 
when he erected a new and more commodious building on Seminary Hill, 
north of High street, now occupied as a double dwelling, and recently 
owned by W. K. Peck, Esq. 

Mr. Rockwell discontinued his school in 1850, and soon after removed 
to Massachusetts, and subsequently engaged in phonetic reporting and 
various educational pursuits. 

He is gratefully remembered by a brge portion of our middle aged 
business men as a faithful and earnest teacher, and by the whole com- 
munity as a quiet, public spirited citizen. His George Washington head 
was as cordially greeted as that of any other of the returning pilgrims to 
our late Centennial Commemoration. 

In connection with Mr. Rockwell it is fitting to notice his cotemporary, 
Elder Miles Grant, who for some four or live years taught the west 
village district school, with an ability and success never excelled in our 
annals. To the sincere regret of parents and scholars, and of the whole 
community, a sense of duty constrained him to leave a calling for which 
he was eminently fitted, and to devote himself to the Master's service in 
another sphere of labor. Highly esteemed and loved as a minister of the 
Gospel, he has no more cordial friends than his Winsted pupils, now in 
the active stage of life, who owe to him a training far beyond what is 
ordinarily secured in a district school. 

In 1830, George Taylor took a lease from James Boyd of the 
land and water power on whicli the Elizur Hinsdale Axe Factory had 
stood, and erected a small machine shop, now constituting a part of the 






AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



429 



present Foundry & Machine Company's building. Mr. Taylor has been 
connected with the eslablishment in all its changes, up to the present 
time. Under the firm of Taylor & Whiting, woollen machinery of 
superior quality, and in large quantities, was manufactured. The 
foundry was erected about 1850. 

We compile abstracts of the polls and taxable property of the Society 
on the lists of 1820 and 1830, showing the increase or decrease in the 
respective items during the decade as follows : — 



Ilonscs and two-acre lots, 
Acres of land, 
Manufactories, 
Gristmills and saw mills, 
Stores, .... 
Clocks and watches, 
Horses, . 
Neat cattle, 
Riding carriages, 
Bank stocks, . 
Turnpike stock, 
Money at interest, . 
Sheep, . . . . 

Polls taxable, 



1820. 



No. 


Amount. 


105 


5 4,5 24 


8153 


149,739 


10 


5,625 


5 


3,475 


4 


2,400 


70 


361 


04 


2,095 


G48 


8,825 


13 


470 




2,800 




424 




3,040 


8G3 


1 , 1 20 


108 





1830. 



No. Amount. 



118 

ro'.io 

18 

4 

7 

142 

118 

802 



102 



48 

108 

15 

1 



,204 
,206 
,000 
,050 
,750 
578 
,395 
,S19 
210 
300 
424 
,034 



These abstracts are rendered nearly useless for comparison by the 
arbitrary changes in the valuation of houses, lands, neat stock, &c, from 
year to year, according to the "wisdom or caprice of the assessors. 

In the item of dwelling houses, while the number is increased by the 
erection of some twenty new buildings, the total amount of assessment is 
reduced $G,2G0 ; whereas, if the standard of valuation had been uniform, 
the totals would have shown an increase of $G,751. So also in the valu- 
ation of lands, if the standard had been kept up, and the same number of 
acres assessed at the beginning and end of the decade, the aggregate 
wotdd have been the same in the first and last years, instead of showing 
a diminution of $41,473. So also in the valuation of neat stock, the 
reduction of the value of cows from $13 to $11, and of other cattle in the 
same proportion made an aggregate reduction of $1,578. 

With these equalizations of the two lists, we shall find an increase of 
the taxable property of the society of $15,925, while the increased num- 
ber of polls, when brought up to the valuation of 1820, would have added 
to the list of 1830 an increase of $27,932, thus making the whole increase 
of the decade $43,897, or an increase of S4,3'J0 per year. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

GROWTH OF VILLAGES.— BOROUGH OF CLIFTON.— POST-OFFICES.— NEW BUILDINGS 

AND FACTORIES. 

1831 to 1841. 

We have thus far traced the early growth of Winsted with a minuteness 
of detail, the further prosecution of which would he equally tiresome to 
compiler and reader ; and have reached a period when the puhlic records 
cease to furnish family statistics in an available form for compiling, owing 
to the neglect of the old, and the imperfection of the new system of reg- 
istration. We propose, therefore, in the further prosecution of our Annals, 
to allude only to the origin and growth of public institutions and private 
enterprises of special public interest. 

Up to 1832, the Green Woods turnpike along Mad river, the road along 
the west side of Still river, and the road along the Lake stream, now re- 
spectively known as Main street, North Main street, and Lake street, fur- 
nished nearly all the building ground as yet required, and would have 
supplied the demand for another decade, had the land owners been dis- 
posed to meet the requirements of the increasing population. 

The first movement for expanding our borders was made by an associ- 
ation of young men, who, in 1832, purchased a line of fifteen building 
lots and the land for a highway in front of them, from Lake street to 
Pratt street, which they named Prospect street. After making and open- 
ing the road at their own expense, they ajDplied to the town authorities to 
accept it as a public highway. It was an unprecedented case. Conserv- 
atism became alarmed. It required some finessing to induce the town to 
accept the gift ; and when accepted, the enterprise had so much fogyism 
to encounter, that it proved a poor investment. At the end of three 
years, only three houses had been erected on the street, and it was ten 
years before the unocciqjied lots could be sold at first cost. 

During the same year Wheelock Thayer erected the scythe works on 
Mad river now owned by his daughter, Mrs. Bacheller, and operated by 
the Thayer Scythe Company; and Samuel Boyd erected the Clifton Mill 
works, now owned by the Winsted Hoe Company, in which he manufac- 
tured shovels, hoes, and carpenters' tools for two or three years, and was 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 431 

succeeded by the Clifton Mill Company, who converted the original build- 
ing into a flouring mill and erected the three-story building for the manu- 
facture of bolts and nuts. The establishment was sold in 1870 to the 
Winsted Hoe Company, and is now used for making planters' hoes and 
carpenters' tools. 

In 1833, on application of inhabitants of the "West Village, the General 
Assembly granted a borough charter to comprehend the part of the bor- 
ough of Winsted lying west of the second tier line. Conservatism again 
took the alarm, and at the first meeting for choice of officers, a ticket was 
elected not favorable to the objects contemplated by the charter. A small 
tax was laid for purchasing a fire engine and organizing a fire company. 
Payment of the tax was refused by some of the tax payers, and there 
was not found sufficient vitality in the corporate body to enforce the pay- 
ment. The bantling had a paralyzed existence of two or three years, and 
then expired. Its primary object was, to secure an efficient fire organiza- 
tion; but, behind this there was a plan for securing a second post-office in 
place of the original office, which had been recently transferred to the 
East Village, the two villages being then distinct communities separated 
from each other by a wide space of land not then obtainable for building 
purposes. 

In this connection a sketch of post-office changes and the almost per- 
petual dissensions growing out of them, which have given to our commu- 
nity an evil fame, seems appropriate as an element of our hi.-tory. In- 
deed, to ignore them would be like performing the play of Hamlet with 
Hamlet himself left out. 

There was a time, strange as it may seem to the present generation, 
when the post-office department was conducted without reference to party 
politics; when the postmaster general was not a cabinet officer; when 
the ruling question in the appointment of a deputy post-master was — is 
he honest, capable, and acceptable to the community ; when the best in- 
terests of the public and of the department were the sole considerations 
applied to questions of location of offices. These principles were recog- 
nized and acted on not only in the days of Washington and JefFer.-on, but 
onward through" the administrations of Monroe and the second Adams. 

About 180G, the only post-office in "Winchester was held by a zealous 
Democrat in the Widow Hall house, on the turnpike beyond the eastern 
border of the present borough of "Winsted. The "West Village had then 
become a business centre, and also more central to the whole town than 
any other point on the mail route. On a representation of these and 
other considerations to Post-master General Granger, a removal of the 
office to the West Village was ordered, and a high-toned Federalist was 
appointed to the place of his democratic predecessor. 



432 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

It is a rule with scarcely nn exception, that when rival villages exist 
in close vicinity to each other, a feeling of jealous rivalry grows with their 
growth; and if they are both within the same po-t-office delivery, this 
feeling is liable to become highly intensified. To this rule Winsted has 
been no exception. Prior to and during the War of 1 8 1 2, the Federal 
element predominated in the West Village, and the democratic in the East. 
Efforts were made from time to time to change the politics of the post- 
master and the location of the office, without avail, until the resignation 
of the Federal incumbent in 1830, when, on an ex-parte hearing of an 
application from the Ea^t Village, an unexpected appointment was made, 
and the location of the office transferred to that section. A second-class 
earthquake could scarcely have produced a greater sensation. The West 
Village at once sent a deputation to Washington, accompanied by a Hart- 
ford Times editor, and on a second ex-parte hearing, the department 
ordered the office to be re opened in the West Village ; but it couldn't be 
made to stay there. Within six months, on another ex-parte hearing, the 
department ordered it back to the East Village. Remonstrances flowed 
in so thickly, that in about a year an oily-tongued official, rejoicing in the 
name of Barnabas Bates, was sent to investigate the case. Nearly three 
days were devoted by him to a public hearing of the contending parties. 
He reported to the department, in substance, that both parties ought to 
have it; but as they couldn't, it had bettsr be located at an intermediate 
point, half a mile distant from each village centre, where next to nobody 
then wanted it, and, as a consequence, it rested in the East Village until 
after the Harrison campaign, when, under a new po-t-master, it again re- 
turned to the We-t Village, leaving a branch office for receiving and de- 
livering letters in the East. Two years after, under Capt. Tj ler's accidental 
reign, the office went back to the East Village, and the branch office to 
the West, and so continued through the administration of President Polk. 
By this time the nomination of postmasters within a congressional dis- 
trict had, by usage, become the unquestioned prerogative — not to say per- 
quisite — of the sitting members. Our member acted honestly and wisely 
by obtaining the establishment of a new office in the West Village, and 
leaving the old office where it then happened to be, and appointing two 
new postmasters. Willi this arrangement the land had rest for some 
years ; but, in the mean time, each village had encroached on the inter- 
mediate vacant space. The Naugatuck Railroad was opened in 1849, and 
the two villages became one. But this one village had three sections in- 
stead of two — the East, the West, and the Flat. The Flat, being the 
central point and the railroad terminus, naturally looked to a speedy pre- 
ponderance over the other sections. A consolidated post office seemed 
easy of attainment. Senator Dixon, like Barkis, " was willing " and ready 
to help by "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," and represen- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 433 

tative Hubbard was befogged ; and like a thunder clap in a clear sky the 
announcement came that the West office was defunct, and the East office 
was transferred to the Flat! Fearful was the indignation of the outlying 
East and West enders. Their reciprocal heart burnings, the growth of a 
half century, dissolved into thin air. The whilom combatants became 
loving friends and turned their combined batteries upon the new victor. 
The Department, finding itself in a quandary, sent another political seer, 
named Nehemiah D. Kperry, to look into the matter, and see what was 
expedient to be done in the premises. Nehemiah heard the parties pub- 
licly and privately, by daylight and with a dark lantern. He too got into 
a quandary, and betook himself to secret negotiations and quack nostrums. 
The result was, a restoration of the two offices, a very imperfect healing 
of the new sore, and a general impression that Nehemiah was a wonderful 
negotiator. The two offices remained as they were until a new muddle 
grew out of the manipulations of a defeated candidate for congress in the 
fourth district, who got the Republican nomination, but could not get votes 
enough to elect him. His successful Republican colleagues, sorrowing for 
his defeat, conceded to him the be*towment of the post-offices in the dist- 
rict. Our people were not suited with his nominations for the twin post- 
offices, and some twenty-five or thirty of them went to Washington, and 
had a boisterous hearing before the gentlemanly P. M. G. Cresswell, who 
appointed two meritorious soldiers to the places, which they now hold. 

It would be a wrong conclusion to draw from this detail of sectional 
squabbles, that our community is wdiolly given up to them, or that the feel- 
ings engendered are very "deep or bitter. The question at issue once set- 
tled, general good feeling is soon restored, and the combatants return to 
their business, and with accustomed energy and cordiality unite in pro- 
moting unsectional measures of improvement or benevolence. 

In 1833 the old Jenkins & Boyd scythe shop was torn down, and a new 
establishment was erected by parties, soon after incorporated as the Win- 
sted Manufacturing Company. This concern, under the able and efficient 
agency of the late John Camp, Esq., until his death in 18G2, has prose- 
cuted the business of scythe-making to the present time with uninter- 
rupted success, making large dividends and sustaining a high reputation 
for good workmanship and upright dealing. Mr. Camp died of a hemor- 
rhage of the lungs, August 19, 1862, aged sixty-one years, leaving a name 
honored for integrity, public spirit, and private benevolence. 

George Dudley, a native of Bloomfield, after a residence of several 
years in the east part of Winsted, purchased the Loomis tannery on Main 
street in 1832, and soon after went into tanning skivers or split sheep 
skins, imported from England, and prepared for book-binding and other pur- 
poses, a branch of the business which has proved highly remunerative to 
55 



434 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

those prosecuting it with skill and energy. Mr. Dudle)', after various 
enlargements of his works, erected his present main building about 1856, 
having, two or three years earlier, put up his two large drying houses on 
Meadow street. 

The present Methodist Episcopal church on Main street was erected in 
1833, under the supervision of nine trustees, of better capacity for man- 
aging dairy farms than for contracting and supervising the building of a 
church edifice. Many repairs and improvements of the building have, 
from time to time, been made, the last of which was the taking down of 
the insignificant spire, and replacing it with one of symmetrical propor- 
tions, creditable to the society, to the village, and to Rev. Mr. Simonson, 
who supervised the work. 

During the latter part of this decade, from 1837 to 1840, one of our 
periodic business revulsions occurred, which, in a great measure, checked 
the growth of the place for the time being. The accession of inhabitants 
and of new dwellings had been rapid during the five preceding years. 

Among the more permanent inhabitants of the society not already 
named, who came in during this decade, were Orentos Bronson, James 
Birdsall, Elliot Beardsley, George Taylor, Doctor James Welch, James 
Humphrey, Asa Parke, Alvin Gilbert, Ambrose Whiting, Horatio L. Wet- 
more, Anson Foskett, David N. Beardsley, Elisha Kilborn, William G. 
Batcheller, Caleb J. Camp, Seth L. Wilder, Normand Adams, Willard S. 
Wetmore, John G. Wetmore, and Chester Wentworth. 

The assessment list of 1840 comprises the following items: 

176 Houses, ... - $79,850 

Land, - 127,026 

19 Factories, ------ 24,500 

4 Grist and Saw Mills, - - 3,425 

7 Stoves, - ... 3,600 

Clocks and Watches, - - - - 1,134 

104 Horses, ------ 4,869 

838 Neat Cattle, ----- 11,392 

4 Carriages, ------ 325 

Bank Stock, - - - 2,500 

Money at interest, ----- 14,053 

152 Taxable Polls, - - - - 3,040 

Total, - - - 275,714 



CHAPTER XXX. 

NEW STREETS AND FACTORIES— WINSTED BANK— HURLBUT BANK— NAUGATUCK RAIL- 
ROAD—EPISCOPAL CHURCH— NEW BURYING GROUND. 

1841 TO 1851. 

In the year 1840 the meadow land between the two villages, north of 
Mad River, and the upland around the Naugatuck Railroad station and 
eastward, came into the hands of a new owner, and was opened to sale for 
building purposes. On the meadow between the west line of the Clarke 
house property and the tier line near Clifton Mill Bridge, and extending 
northward so as to embrace Elm street, High street, Wheeler street, most 
of the Green Woods Agricultural Park, the whole of Center street, and 
the part of Main street between the points first indicated, was used solely 
for farming purposes, with only one dwelling on the whole area. On the 
south side of the river, a road, since named Willow street, turned easterly, 
along the rear of the Clifton Mill property, and joined the Burrville road, 
on which but three houses had, as yet, been erected. Opposite the Clarke 
house, between the road and river, stood an ancient forge with its large 
coal houses, and a small forgeman's house, and across the river, a dilapi- 
dated saw-mill and three forgemen's houses on and near the site of the 
New England Pin Company's factory. 

The lots on the north side of Main street were laid out and mainly 
taken up in 1841 and soon after built upon by new comers, who here 
found eligible openings, not before obtainable, at moderate prices. A new 
life and energy became apparent. New enterprises were projected and 
prosecuted, and old ones were stimulated to new vigor. Old indebted- 
nesses were paid off, and the system of doing business with accommoda- 
tion paper discounted at the Hartford banks and renewed at maturity, 
which had long prevailed, was gradually abandoned. 

About 1845 the Methodist parsonage and the house now owned by 
Rufus E. Holmes were erected by Charles B. Weed, on the north line of 
High street. The line of the street had been agreed on by the proprietors 



436 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

of the lands through which it ran, but no action was had by the town until 
August 22, 1846, when, on report of the Selectmen, a survey of the pro- 
posed road along the line of High street to Elm street, and thence south- 
erly to Main street at the Clarke House, was accepted and approved by 
the town ; but on the 26th of October following the town voted to dis- 
continue it, and a resort to the County Court became necessary to estab- 
lish it. The lots were speedily taken up, and it has proved a favorite 
section of the borough. 

In 1815 the new burying-ground, south of the east village, was pur- 
chased and opened. It had been laid out in lots some years earlier. The 
grave of a daughter of Harmon Munson, who died June 28, 1831, was the 
first that was opened in it. It was enlarged to its present dimensions in 
1871. 

In 1846 " the Home Company," a joint stock concern, now extinct, 
erected the factory building now owned by the New England Pin Com- 
pany and went into the manufacture of doeskin cloths. The company 
had no previous experience in this line of manufacture ; their successive 
foremen proved incompetent, and *the enterprise shared the fate of all 
previous attempts at woolen manufacture in Winsted. The property was 
subsequently purchased by Anson G. Phelps, who, in 1855, sold it to the 
New England Pin Company, its present owners. 

The Winsted Bank, with a capital of $100,000, was chartered in 1848. 
The bill for its charter was in the first instance rejected by the Assembly 
at the instance of the Hartford bankers ; but it was at once discovered 
that the rejection was operating a change of views of Litchfield County 
members on the Air Line Bridge question, then before the Asssembly ; 
the Hartford members obtained a reconsideration of the adverse vote ; 
and in six hours af.er its rejection the charter had passed both houses. 

The location and control of this institution was a matter of deep inter- 
est to the two outside sections of Winsted. Plotting and counter-plotting 
were resorted to. The commissioners distributed the stock in the interest 
of the east section, which secured llvti of the directors and allowed to the 
west section only two. Then came the presidential question. Unfortu- 
nately, the dominant party were not agreed as to which of their directors 
should control the institution. One of them controlled directly or indi- 
rectly six hundred out of the one thousand shares of the stock, yet he 
failed of an election by reason of two eastern votes being cast for a west- 
ern candidate. This result was followed in a few days by the transfer of 
six hundred shares of stock to western parties, and soon afterwards by 
other transfers, which vacated the seats of two of the eastern directors, 
whose places were tilled by directors in the western interest. 

Soon after this, the banking office was opened in a room of the Beards- 
ley House, with George Dudley as President, and E. S. Hamilton as 
Cashier. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 437 

The banking house, now the property of the Winsted Savings Bank, 
was erected in 1851. The profits of the first six 'months' business were 
swallowed up by the failure of one customer residing out of the State. 
By experience and caution, the bank thereafter in a great measure 
escaped similar losses, and did a prosperous business until Nov. 9, 1861, 
when its vault was broken open by burglars, who carried off cash assets 
to the amount of $60,100, only about $18,000 of which were finally re- 
covered, at a cost of over $2,000. This calamity, by impairing its capi- 
tal, prevented its reception as a National Bank ; in consequence of which, 
and the heavy tax on circulation of State banks, its business was there- 
after prosecuted at great disadvantage, and it was closed and the charter 
surrendered Sept. 1, 1867. 

Notwithstanding this loss, and disadvantage, the institution had been 
so carefully and judiciously managed that the stock-holders received on 
the final liquidation $113 on each $100 of their stock.* 

The Huilbut Bank was organized in June, 1857, under the provisions 
of the General Banking Law of 1852, and under the presidency of Wil- 
liam H. Phelps, Esq., its organizer, who controlled its operations until 
his death on the 25th day of August, 1864, at the age of about 46. 

The directors of the bank, by vote on record, Resolved " that we are 
fully sensible of the loss to this institution of an able financier, whose 
faithfulness and diligence in managing the affairs of the bank are fully ap- 
parent in its success, and the character it lias sustained at home and 
abroad for its soundness and prosperity. We also feel deeply his loss in 
common with this community, as an honest and capable adviser, a genial 
companion, and highly esteemed citizen." 

The bank was organized with a capital of $130,000, which was in- 
creased in 1854 to $200,000; to which has since been added a subscrip- 
tion of stock to the amount of $5,000 by the American Deaf and Dumb 
Asylum. 

It was reorganized as a National Bank immediately after the passage 
by Congress of the National Banking Law ; and since the death of Mr. 
Phelps has been successfully and profitably managed by officers trained 
by him. 

The Naugatuck Railroad, from Derby to Plymouth, was chartered in 
1845. In 1847 the company was allowed an extension of one year for 
commencing its road and expending thereon the sum of fifty thousand 
dollars ; and were authorized to extend its line to Winsted. Prior to the 
awarding of the contracts and extending the line to Winsted, it had been 
transferred to Alfred Bishop, of Bridgeport, and his associates, who in 



* It should have been noted that the capital stock of the bank was enlarged iu 1854 

to $30U,()O(). 



438 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

consideration of a bonus of thirty thousand dollars and payment of the 
land damages along itS line to Waterbury, by the citizens interested in its 
completion, contracted to build the road and open it to that point in 1849. 
Soon after the extension to Winsted was authorized, Mr. Bishop pro- 
posed to so extend it, on being secured another cash bonus of $30,000, 
and a right of way from Waterbury northward. The proposition was 
unlooked for, but was promptly responded to. A meeting of citizens in- 
terested along the line was immediately called, and a division of responsi- 
bility was agreed upon, by which the citizens of Winsted assumed half 
the bonus and the securing the whole right of way and depot grounds 
within the town of Winchester; and the citizens of Wolcottville and 
Plymouth agreed to assume the other half of the bonus and the whole ex- 
pense of the remaining land title. 

A spirit of liberality, before unprecedented, prevailed. Men gave 
their thousands who had never before given a hundred for any public ob- 
ject. The subscription was speedily tilled up, — when the chronic sec- 
tional disease of our community broke out on the question of locating the 
terminus , — whether it should be on the East village green, on the Flat, 
or in the West village. There was a backing down of a portion of sub- 
scriptions, which rendered a new subscription necessary on the basis of 
locating the terminus on the Flat where the depot now stands. A re- 
assessment of the adhering subscribers was proposed and speedily 
adopted. About five thousand dollars was assumed by adhering sub- 
scribers to make good the withdrawn subscriptions, and the contract with 
Mr. Bishop was thereupon perfected. 

The iron horse paid his first visit to the Winsted depot, Sept. 21, 1849. 
The first passenger train came up on Saturday the 22d, and returned on 
the following Monday. The population of the whole town at that period 
was less than 2,100. In 1860 it was 3,550. As the population of the 
Old Society remained stationary, or decreased during the intervening 
period, we may safely estimate the increase of Winsted population during 
the eleven years after the opening of the railroad at 1 450, — or G5 per cent. 

The number of taxable polls in the town in 1849 was, - - 438 

In 1860, it had increased to - - - - - 853 

Showing a gain in eleven years of 94| per cent. 

This increased value of property is not to be wholly assigned to Win- 
sted Society, as it results partly from the greatly increased valuation of 
wood lands throughout the whole town. 

Mr. Bishop, the projector and builder of the road, died before its com- 
pletion. He was a man of far seeing and comprehensive views, — of 
quiet energy, and liberal spirit. He looked to ultimate results rather 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 439 

than to immediate gains, and believed in a policy of promoting the growth 
of manufacturing and commercial business along the whole line of the 
road, to be affected by low freights on raw materials going from tide- 
water to the interior, and thereby increasing the return freights of manu- 
factured articles. His successors entertained more conservative views. 
The}'- looked to immediate results, not by fostering the interests of the 
business sections remote from tide-water, but by imposing high fares and 
indiscriminating tariffs of freights, — so high as to discourage new manu- 
facturing enterprises. This policy was peculiarly unfavorable to Winsted 
by reason of her manufactures being mainly of heavy iron hardware, 
requiring iron, steel, coal, grind-stones, etc., to be brought from tide- 
water. 

The result was, for several years, a most unsatisfactory income to the 
company from the northern section of the road. The main cause of this 
did not so impress itself upon the comprehension of the directors of the 
road as to induce any change of policy. Nevertheless, our business, 
though sadly retarded, could not but be benefited by a small reduction of 
freights and fares below the cost of transportation by teams to and from 
Hartford on the east, and the Housatonic Railroad on the west. 

The unprofitableness of the road until a recent period, grew in part out 
of its cheap original construction. A large portion of the stone masonry 
and bridges have required rebuilding not only once, but in not a few 
cases, oftener. The track has had to be raised or changed in many 
places, and no inconsiderable damages have been paid for accidents grow- 
ing out of imperfect construction and repairs. To the stockholders, it has 
eventually become a profitable pecuniary investment; — whether more or 
less so by reason of its enormous freight charges and penurious manage- 
ment, is a question on which there may be a diversity of opinion. 

The first stated worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Win- 
sted was begun in 1847, by Rev. H. Frisbie, and some funds were then 
raised for a church edifice. During the following year arrangements were 
made for building a church and a location was agreed on. The present 
Episcopal Church was soon after contracted for and was completed in 
October, 1848 ; and on the 27th day of that month the parish of St. 
James was legally organized by choice of Rev. Jonathan Coe, Jr., Rector, 
James R. Coe and Uriel Spencer, Jr., Wardens ; and Dr. John L. Wake- 
field, Hon. Wm. S. Holabird, and Alexander Durgin, Vestrymen. The 
church was consecrated the same autumn. Rev. Jonathan Coe, Jr., was 
succeeded in 1854 by Rev. James W. Coe, who officiated for one year. 
In I806 Rev. James R. Coe, brother of the first Rector, was chosen Rec- 
tor, and officiated as such until 1860, when he was succeeded by Rev. 
David H. Short, who remained about two years, after which the parish 



440 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

was for some time supplied by Rev. J. D. Berry, D.D., of Litchfield. In 
1866 Rev. Wm. H. Williams was chosen Rector, and served two years ; 
and was succeeded by Rev. Wm. H. Lewis, Jr., who remained until May, 
1870, when Rev. D. P. Sanford, the present Reel or, took charge of the 
parish. The location of the church, influenced Ivy the liberal subscrip- 
tions of individuals in its immediate vicinity, has been deemed ill-judged, 
and is supposed to have essentially retarded its growth. Endeavors have 
been made to obtain its removal to a more central point, intermediate be- 
tween the east and west sections, but as yet without success. 

Meadow street was laid out in the fall of 1849 by Col. Hosea Hinsdale 
and Samuel Boyd, who owned the adjoining lands and laid them out in 
building lots of five rods fi*ont and eight rods depth. The northern por- 
tion of the land had been the home meadow of Col. Hinsdale, and the 
southern, the home meadow of James Boyd, then recently deceased. 
Buildings began at once to be erected on these lots, and they were nearly 
all taken up and improved within five years. Monroe street was also laid 
out and opened by Mr. Boyd the same year. 

We note, among our prominent citizens who died during this decade, 
the following : 

Capt. Zebina Smith, February 4, 1842, aged 82. 

Capt. Grinnell Spencer, March 5, 1843, aged 74. 

Theodore Hinsdale, Esq., Nov. 27, 1841, aged 40. 

Rev. Daniel Coe,,Jan. 12, 1847, aged 64. 

James Boyd, Feb. 28, 1849, aged 78. 

Rev. James Beach, June 10, 1850, aged 70. 

Jonathan Coe, May 31, 1849, aged 79. 

Luman Hubbell, Oct. 1846. 

Gideon Hall, St., Feb. 23, 1850, aged 75. 

Dr. Luman Wakefield, March 20, 1 850. aged 63. 

Nath". B. Gaylord, 1849. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



441 



"We compile abstracts of the Assessment Lists of 1840 and 1850, show- 
ing the increased quantity and amount of property during the decade as 
follows : 





List of 1840. 


List of 1850. 


Increase. 


Dwelling- houses, .... 


176 


$79,850 


311 


$161,880 


135 


82,030 


Acres of land, 


S,168 


127,026 


8,477 


184,103 


309 


57,077 


Mills, factories, and stores, 


30 


31,525 


39 


65,605 


9 


34,080 


Horses 


104 


4,869 


177 


9,135 


73 


4,266 


Neat cattle, 


838 


11,392 


1,201 


15,397 


363 


4,005 


Investments in trade and manufactures, 




8,225 




76,790; 




68,565 


Bank stocks, ..... 




2,500 




71,430 




68,930 


Railroad bonds, .... 








5,400; 




5,400 


Money at interest, .... 




14,053 




74,294 




60,241 


Taxable polls, .... 


152 




383 




231 




Total amount of taxable property on 














the two assessment lists, . 




459,649 




669,999 




209,350 


Population of town, 




1,667 




2,179 




512 



It will be seen by the foregoing abstracts that the dwellings had nearly 
doubled in number, and more than doubled in value during the ten 
years ; — that the value of factories, stores, etc., had more than doubled ; 
that the bank stocks had increased more than twenty-fold, and money at 
interest more than five-fold. 

The population of the Old Society remained stationary or decreased 
during the decade, so that the gain was altogether in Winsted. 



56 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

1841 to 1851. 

mechanics and laborers.— roman catholic church.— savings and building 
association.— new streets. 

The elements of the steady and prosperous growth of "Winsted have 
been, first of all, business men not only of energy, but of sound moral 
and religious principle ; second, the manufacture of such articles of prime 
necessity as require skillful and hard-working artizans ; third, a variety of 
moderately-sized establishments, conducted by actual resident owners; 
fourth, a mutual sympathy of employers and employed, combined with a 
desire on all hands for the moral improvement of the community. 

The original iron workers — forgeraen, as they were termed — came 
from Ancram, N. Y., and from the Jerseys. They were mainly of Low 
Dutch descent, working hard at irregular hours, blowing up their fires at 
from two to four o'clock in the morning, completing their day's work soon 
after noon, and spending the rest of the day in fishing and drinking. 
This was the general characteristic, but there were some of them who 
broke loose from these habits, and became thrifty men and good citizens. 

The iron masters discovered the evils of rum selling and rum drinking 
years before the general temperance movement began, and applied the 
remedy in part, abandoning the sale of liquors, and getting rid of their 
most intemperate workmen. 

The early scythe makers were mainly Down Easters, of industrious, 
thrifty habits, and good morals. Their successors have maintained their 
characteristics, and constitute a large class of our most respectable 
citizens and property owners. The same qualities characterize our 
tanners, clockmakers, hoemakers, machinists, and other handicraftsmen. 
In no other manufacturing place in the state are as large a portion of 
the mechanics owners of comfortable homesteads, to say nothing of 
savings bank deposits and ten per cent, bonds, as in Winsted. "We are 
most fortunately exempt from overshadowing cotton mills, print works, 
paper mills, and other establishments mainly sustained by the bone and 
muscle of poor children, imported — with their degraded parents — in 
box cars from the cities, and uncared for by their absentee employer, 



FAMILY RECORDS. 443 

save in securing from them the largest amount of labor, at the lowest 
cost. 

The diversity of our manufactures is a special source of prosperity. 
The depression of one or two bi'anches does not paralyze the community 
nor crowd the poor house. 

Prior to the opening of the Naugatuck Railroad, the number of resi- 
dents of foreign birth was very limited. Some of the railroad laborers 
remained after the road was finished, and their friends and relations 
joined them. Others followed them by the new channel of access to this 
before secluded region. All of them found ready employment in a sober 
and temperate community, as yet uncontaminated by a vicious class. 

It is a prevailing habit to carp about the faults and vices of our foreign 
laborers and domestics. The first question is, what could we have done 
without them in our rapidly enlarging community, in which every native 
born robust man could have found better employment than precarious 
day labor, and every healthy intelligent girl could go into a school or 
factory, where higher wages could he earned, and better dresses worn 
than at domestic service. Better, it doubtless might have been, that the 
good old time had continued, when a trade required from five to seven 
years apprenticeship, instead of six months as at present ; when the 
young farmer's son worked out by the month to earn his first investment 
in land, and the smart farmer's daughter, besides doing the household 
drudgery, spun her two runs of yarn each day, and went to conference or 
singing school at night, on a stipend of four-and-sixpence a week ; but 
those times had been played out long before the advent of Patrick and 
Bridget. It was Patrick, with his unreasoning muscle, who brought 
the railroad to our doors, and then cheerfully, though unskillfully, took up 
and carried forward the lost art of hard drudgery, which the discontented 
and fretful employer, not owning a gang of fat healthy negroes, could 
obtain from no other earthly quarter. It was Bridget who became the 
angel of the kitchen — an imperfect angel to be sure — but considerably 
more charming than the slatternly home-raised hired help ; the remnant 
of her race, who, in later times, shirked the hardest drudgery of the 
kitchen on her careworn mistress, and combed out her carroty locks in 
the parlor in presence of the mistress's guests. 

There is a prevailing tendency to berate the Irish beyond reason. 
Glaring faults they have, as a result of grinding oppression and cruelty 
to which they and their fathers have been subjected for centuries. They 
have also virtue*, which are to be developed only by patience and con- 
siderate kindness. They are ignorant, and must be enlightened by 
education and moral culture. They are among us and of us, and they 
bid fair to outnumber us in half a century, unless the Yankee race 



444 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

becomes more prolific in the future than in the present era of barrenness 
among native women. 



Roman Catholic worship was first instituted in Winsted in 1851, by 
Rev. James Lynch, from Birmingbam, in the schoolhouse of the west 
district, which was attended by about forty Catholics. Land for a church 
lot was secured the same year, and in 1852 Rev. Thomas Quinn 
entered on his pastoral duties, and commenced the erection of St. 
Joseph's Catholic Church. Until its completion mass was celebrated on 
the sabbath in Camp's Hall. Rev. Philip Gilleck succeeded Father 
Quinn in 1853, and supervised the completion of the church so far as to 
render it suitable for divine worship. The Rev. Thomas Henricken, now 
Bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, succeeded Father Gilleck in 
1854, and in 1855 was transferred to Waterbury, when Rev. Richard 
O'Gorman succeeded him in the pastorate. He was succeeded in 1856 
by Rev. Lawrence Mangan, and he in 1860 by Rev. Daniel Mullen, 
who was soon after transferred to the chaplaincy of the 9th Regiment, 
Connecticut Volunteers. He was succeeded in 1861 by Rev. Philip 
Sheriden, who remained in the pastorate until 1864, when Rev. Father 
Leo da Saracena, of the Order of St. Francis d'Assissi, who had succeeded 
Father Mullen in the chaplaincy of the 9th Connecticut Volunteers, was 
appointed to the pastorate by Bishop McFarland of Hartford. 

Under his energetic supervision, the parish was thoroughly organized, 
and additional lands were purchased, with buildings thereon for a parish 
school, and a residence for the sisters of the third order of St. Francis, by 
whom the school was organized, and has been successfully conducted, the 
number of children in attendance being from fifty to sixty. In 1866 he 
secured the purchase of other adjoining lands for the institutions of his 
order, on which he proceeded to erect the brick monastery standing 
immediately west of the church, the church itself having been donated to 
the order by Bishop McFarland in November, 1866. In January, 1867, 
other land and buildings were purchased and fitted up for the Academy 
of St. Margaret of Cortonia, an institution for educating young ladies in 
the higher branches. A fine grove in the rear of the church and 
monastery has also been purchased, in which it is designed to erect a 
future residence of the sisters of the order. 

The buildings stand on a hill sloping down to Main street on the 
south, so elevated as to command a splendid view of the surrounding 
village and valley. 

The institution was incorporated in 1866, under the name of " The 
St. Francis Literary and Theological Seminary," and is now (1872) 
conducted by the following officials : — 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 445 

st. Joseph's r. c. church. 
Pastor — Rev. Fra. Leo da Saracena, O.S.F. 

ST. FRANCIS' R. C. LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 

President — Rev. Fra. Leo da Saracena, O.S.F. 
Vice-President — Rev. Fra. Isaiah da Scanno, O.S.F. 
Secretary — Rev. Fra. Diomedes, O.S.F. 

st. Margaret's r. c. academy for young ladies. 

Instructors — Sisters of St. Francis. 

ST. FRANCIS R. C. PAROCHIAL SCHOOL. 

Instructors — Sisters of St. Francis. 

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS' CONVENT. 

Rev. Mother Josephine Todd.* 

John D. Howe and Willard S. Wetmore having, in 1850, purchased 
from the heirs of Luman Wakefield, deceased, two adjoining tracts of 
land on the west border of the east village, proceeded to lay out four 
streets thereon, aud to divide the adjoining lands into quarter-acre lots. 
The streets laid out were — Grove street, running westerly from the east 
village park, Walnut street, Oak street, and Chestnut street, running 
parallel with each other, northerly from Main to Grove streets. They 
were accepted as highways by the town in 1851. 

An epidemic building fever set in about this time, which expedited the 
rapid sale of these and other newly-opened lots. The source of this 
epidemic is traceable to an association of homeless men in New Haven, 
who sought to aid each other in providing homesteads by combining their 
limited resources, and loaning the same, as they accrued, to the members 
of the association offering the highest bonus, in addition to six per cent. 
interest therefor, and applying the loaned money to buildings to be 
erected on lots mortgaged to the association as security for the loans. 
Each associate on joining the institution took up any number of shares at 
his option, and contracted to pay in monthly installments of five per cent, 
until the stock taken was fully paid up. The amount monthly paid in 
was at once loaned to the stockholder who offered the highest bonus in 
addition to legal monthly interest, and the money borrowed, less the 



* The foregoing Retails are gathered and condensed from materials furnished by 
Rev. Father Leo da Saracena. 



446 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

bonus, was to be applied to building a house on a lot owned by the bor- 
rower, and mortgaged to the association for security of his loan. The 
theory was that each stockholder of a series was eventually to become a 
borrower of a sum equal to the amount of his stock. When this point 
was reached, or before, the whole capital of the series would be filled up, 
and the principal of each borrower's note be paid by a surrender of his 
fully paid stock, leaving the balance of profit, if any, to be divided to 
each of the series pro rata. 

One series of stockholders being thus paid off and discharged, the same 
process of paying in and loaning out in due course of time discharged 
and paid off the next series, the third, and so on, as long as accessions of 
stockholders and borrowers could be secured. The Avhole thing looked 
rose-colored on paper. There were wise financiers who could mathema- 
tically demonstrate that however large the bonuses paid on loans, both 
the borrower and lender would be equally benefited. 

On the promulgation of this financial discovery the General Assembly 
of 1850 gave it their blessing and sanction by authorizing the establish- 
ment of savings and building associations without limit of number or cap- 
ital, and with a perfect abandon of prudential restraints and prohibitions. 
The principle of requiring each stockholder to become a borrower was 
discarded. The associations were allowed to receive deposits from out- 
siders, either on interest or without, and to make temporary or permanent 
loans of the same to outsiders or members, on personal or mortgage se- 
curities, and at any rate of premium added to interest they could extort 
from needy borrowers. 

Institutions under this law were speedily organized all over the state. 
Our community, by reason of its chronic local jealousies, could not work 
together in one company, and so formed two : " The Winsted Saving and 
Building Association" in the East Village, and "The West Winsted Sav- 
ings Bank and Building Association " in the West Village, which went 
into operation in May and July, 1852. The rich and the poor went into 
money making and homestead building with a rush. The rival com- 
panies stimulated each other. Our moneyed men, who had before loaned 
their funds on legal interest, found, in the workings of these institutions, a 
mine of legal extortion, of which they speedily availed themselves. They 
collected in their six per cent, loans, and made these institutions the dis- 
pensers of their funds. The banks had ceased to discount accommo- 
dation paper, and scrimped their business customers, in order to make 
western loans on protected circulation. The school fund had very limited 
incoming funds, and could loan them in New York state and elsewhere at 
7 per cent. Honest, unsophisticated savings banks were mainly confined 
to the cities. The poor man and the man loaded with debt had no other 
resource but these disguised shaving mills. Their monthly loanings were 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 447 

competed for with blind desperation, and were taken at premiums of from 
20 to 83 per cent, over and beyond legal interest, the premium being de- 
ducted from the principal in advance, and the interest made a monthly 
charge. 

The stockholder was bound to pay in on the first of each month a five 
dollar installment on each thousand dollars of his stock. If a borrower, 
he bound himself to pay five dollars more on the thousand of the principal 
of his loan, and Ave more as interest thereon. He was told by those who 
ought to have known better — if they did not — that there was a talismanic 
working of the financial scheme, which would come out all right in the 
end, and make him the easy owner of a homestead. This system of grind- 
ing had some features of plausibility about it by which improvident men 
were encouraged to embark in the scheme, and induced to assume monthly 
liabilities which they could not discharge out of their monthly earnings 
without starving their families or running in debt for food and clothing. 

But their charters permitted them to run another grinding mill without 
restraint or limitation. They could receive funds deposited at a legal rate 
of interest, and loan them out on short paper, secured by endorsers or 
collaterals, to the highest bidder, without limit of premium. The pre- 
miums discounted generally ranged from one to two per cent, a month, 
and in some casts higher, owing to the necessities of borrowing stock- 
holders to meet their monthly dues. 

The machines, at the outset, worked smoothly. There was a phrenzy 
of money making sentiment in their favor which silenced criticism, and 
put down all opposition. Series after series of stock were taken up. 
First series shares soon rose, not in value, but in estimation, based on 
apparent profits, to double the investments paid in. Men more far-seeing 
than avaricious began to sell their shares to their more sanguine associates ; 
but still, little of friction was manifest. Borrowers still contrived, by hook 
or by crook, to pay up their monthly dues. This went on for two or 
three years before serious discontent became manifest. Some of the bor- 
rowers, to be sure, had already been driven to a forfeiture of their stock 
and a loss of what they had paid in, but their associates were slow to per- 
ceive that the same fate awaited their own ventures. At length discontent 
and alarm became general. Large numbers of borrowers ceased to pay 
their monthly dues, and defied the companies to collect them. Fore- 
closures were resorted to by the companies, and on trial of these the de- 
fendants raised questions as to the legality of the loans. The courts, im- 
pressed with the magnitude of the interests, and the nicety of the legal 
questions involved, were slow to decide, but finally sustained the legality 
of the loans ; and the legislature passed an act affirming past illegal con- 
tracts, and limiting the extent of usurious robbery thereafter to an equiva- 
lent of twelve per cent. 



448 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

By this time, the associates, much reduced in numbers, were ranged in 
two well-defined antagonistic classes, the rich speculators, who had retained 
their original stock, and bought in the stock of many of the smaller non- 
borrowing associates, and the rebellious borrowers who had not yet been 
ground to powder. There was, moreover, a small class of borrowers who 
heroically continued to pay their monthly dues. One after another of the 
borrowers made the best terms they could with the speculators and got rid 
of the concern, rather than waste their money in law suits. The persis- 
tent rebels were foreclosed. The surrendered and foreclosed homesteads 
were sold by auction, not to the public at large, but within the ring of 
surviving associates. The prices realized in these sales were uniformly 
below the cost of the buildings, and many of them did not pay half the 
pledged indebtedness ; but they were mainly bid off' by parties who could 
hold and rent them until, on a change of times, they could sell them at a 
large advance on the cost. 

The legislatui'e, in the meantime, had set about amending the organic 
law by enacting such provisions as should, at the outset, have protected 
the borrowers from the cruel extortions to which they were subjected. 
One of these provided that, in the future, no association should be formed 
unless all- the stock should be owned and held by borrowers to an amount 
equal to their stock when fully paid in. Another act, in 1868, subjected 
the association to the scrutiny and supervision of the bank commissioners, 
and utterly abolished the system of bonuses on loans, and provided for an 
equitable liquidation of claims, and a winding up of such associations as 
were played out, and prohibited the formation of new ones under the law 
of 1850. 

Some of the associations had a tenacity of life and sharp practice which 
defied extinguishment by previous enactments. These, by a law of 
that year, were required to pay into the state treasury one-fourth of one 
per cent, annually on their stocks and deposits; and by a law of 1860 
they were prohibited from receiving deposits after 1861. 

Whatever may have been the operations and results of these associa- 
tions elsewhere — in Winsted they were oppressive and disastrous. The 
rich were made richer and the poor were made poorer. More than a 
hundred ill-contrived and poorly built dwellings were erected, in whole or 
in part, by means of funds from these associations, very few of which re- 
main in the hands of the builders. Our two associations, so rich in 
promise, and so baleful in performance, breathed their last contempora- 
neously about 1860. 

The following new streets, in addition to those already referred to, 
were laid out and accepted at the dates specified : — 

Meadow street, from Lake to Main street, was laid out in 1850, and 
accepted by the town in 1851. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 449 

The west part of Willow street, which originally ran over the site of 
the Naugatuck passenger depot, was moved to its present line in 1849, 
and the three houses then standing on its south side were moved to the 
hank of the river. 

Bridge street was laid out and accepted in 185G, and Elm street was 
extended northerly along the west border of the agricultural park the 
same year. 

Center street and Case avenue were accepted in June, 1853. 

Spring street, from Prospect street west to the residence of Mrs. 
Ellen A. Phillips, and the part of Rockwell street running thence south 
east to Pratt street, were accepted in October, 1853, but the latter had 
been graded and built on some two years earlier. The northerly section 
of Rockwell street, extending to Lake street, was graded and accepted 
in 1856. Each of these three highways, and the working of them, was 
granted to the town without claim lor compensation. 

Union street was opened and accepted a.-, a highway in July, 1854. 

The part of the new road from Wimted to Riverton, starting from 
near the east abu of the Daniel B. Wilson bridge over Still River, 

and running northeasterly to Barkhamsted line, was laid out and accepted 
in August, 1858. 

North Main street originally ran north and south through the center 
of the public green or parade ground in the east village. Preparatory to 
enclosing this ground as a park, the two streets now bordering the 
enclosure on the east and west sides were laid out and accepted by the 
town in 1858. and at the same time the central highway was discon- 
tinued. The area was enclosed and graded, and the trees and ever- 
greens set out ^oon afterwards by voluntary subscriptions of citizens 
residing in the vicin^y. 



450 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



We compile from the assessment list of 1840 the items and amount of 
taxable property, and amount thereof in the Society of Winsted, as 
follows : — 



No. 


Real Estate. 


'Valuation. 






176 


Dwelling houses, 


$79,850 


At 3 per cent. 




8,168 


Acres land, 


127,026 






19 


Factories, .... 


24,500 






7 


Stores, .... 


3,6Q0 






4 


Mills, 

Personal Estate. 


3,425 


$238,401 
At 6 per cent. 


$ 752.03 


838 


Neat, cattle, 


11,392 






104 


Horses, 


4,809 






509 


Sheep, . 


509 






4 


Carriages, .... 


325 






199 


Clocks and watches, . 

Silver plate, .... 

Money at interest, ■ . 

Bank stock, ..... 


1,137 

50 

14,053 

2,500 








Turnpike stock, . 


400 


$35,235 


2,514.10 




Assessments of business, 






247.00 


152 


Polls, 






3,040.00 




$12,553.13 




Deduct for indebtedness, . 






407.67 




$12,145.46 



CHAPTER XXXII, 
From 1851 to 1861. 



1851. 



Prior to 1851 only three churches existed in Winsted : the First Con- 
gi'egational, the Methodist, and the Epfscopal. The Congregational house 
was located in the East Village, and was attended by members from all 
sections of the society. The Methodist house was located in the West 
Village, and was mainly attended by residents in the West section. 

On the 14th of May, 1853, a meeting was called to consult in reference 
to the organization of a second Congregational church and society to he 
located in the West Village, and a committee was appointed to investigate 
the subject, and report to an adjourned meeting on the 21st. The com- 
mittee reported on the 27th that the large increase of population, and the 
prospect of a more rapid accession in the future, rendered an increase of 
religious privileges and accommodations indispensable to the well-being of 
the community ; and recommended an early organization of an Ecclesias- 
tical society, and the location and building of a house of worship ; and 
thereupon a society was duly organized under the corporate name of " The 
Second Congregational Society of Winsted." The original corporators 
were : James Humphrey, Timothy Hulbert, Phelps II. Parsons, James 
Cone, John Cone, Elizur P>. Parsons, William S. Phillips, and Joel G. 
Griswold, not belonging to the first society, to whom were added, by cer- 
tificate of withdrawal from the first society, John Boyd, John Hinsdale, 
Moses Camp, Wm. F. Hatch. Sherman T. Cooke, Geo. Dudley, Caleb J. 
Camp, James R. Alvord, John W. Bidwell, John T. Rockwell, Abram G. 
Kellogg, James Welch, Elliot Beardsley, James C. Smith, Charles C. 
Spencer, Joel J. Wilcox, L) man Baldwin, Jenison J. Whiting, and James 
Birdsall. 

The church with which the society was connected was made up mainly 
of members of the First Congregational Church regularly dismissed, and 
was organized with the advice of a council of neighboring churches. The 



452 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

first religious services were held in Camp's hall late in November, 1853, 
and conducted by Rev. C. H. A. Bulckley, of New York, who continued 
to supply the pulpit through the months of December and January follow- 
ing. On the 8th of February, 1854, a unanimous call of the church and 
society was extended to him to become the pastor, on a salary of one 
thousand dollars a year, which was accepted on the second of April follow- 
ing, and he was soon afterwards installed by an advisory council of neigh- 
boring churches. 

The religious exercises of the church continued to be held in Camp's 
hall until 1857. In the meantime, the building of a church edifice was 
delayed by the difficulty of obtaining an eligible lot on which to erect it, 
until March, 1856, when the site of the present house was purchased, on 
which the house was built during the year following, and was dedicated 
September 16th, 1857. 

Mr. Bulckley continued his pastorate of the church until May 7, 1859, 
when his resignation was accepted. During the same year the chapel 
immediately north of the church edifice was raised and covered in. Early 
in February, 1860, the steeple of the church was blown down, and nearly 
half of the roof was crushed in by its fall. It was rebuilt and the chapel 
finished the following season at a cost of five thousand dollars, which, 
when added to the previous cost of the buildings and ground, made up the 
sum of about twenty thousand dollars. As a token of the kindly feeling 
subsisting between the Congregational and Methodist churches, it is worthy 
of note that immediately after the disaster above mentioned the Methodist 
church cordially invited its unfortunate sister church to occupy their pul- 
pit with its minister, either one-half of each Sabbath, or the whole of each 
alternate Sabbath, until its repairs should be completed. The First Con- 
gregational church in the East Village extended a similar invitation. 
These invitations were gratefully acknowledged, but declined in order that 
the Sabbath-school of the church might be kept up by meeting for wor- 
ship in the old quarters at Camp's Hall. 

In August, 1860, the church and society extended a call to Rev. Arthur 
T. Pierson to become their pastor, which was declined. On the 7th of 
September following an unanimous call of the church and society was ex- 
tended to Rev. Hiram Eddy, which was accepted by him on Nov. 6, 1860, 
and he was soon afterwards installed. The repairs of the church were 
completed so as to re-open the services there early in January, 1861. 
Rev. Mr. Eddy having received from Governor Buckingham the appoint- 
ment of Chaplain of the Second Regiment Connecticut Infantry, applied 
on June 16, 1861, for leave of absence for two months, which was 
granted, and provision made for the supply of his pulpit. He was taken 
prisoner by the rebels on the retreat from Bull Run, and went the round 
of rebel prisons, from Richmond to Columbia, S. C, thence to Charleston 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 453 

and back to Salisbury, N. C, where he was exchanged, after an imprison- 
ment and the cruelest treatment for fourteen months, when he returned 
and resumed his parochial duties. In 1864 the organ now in use was 
purchased by individual subscriptions at a cost of two thousand dollars. 

On the 16th of October, 1865, Mr. Eddy's resignation was presented to 
the church and society and accepted. On the 16th of May, 1866, Rev. 
Charles Wetherby, of North Cornwall, was called to the pastorate on a 
salary of $1500, and a free parsonage, which he accepted, and was in- 
stalled soon afterward. He continued his pastorate until October 9, 1871, 
when he was dismissed at his own request. 

On the organization of the Second Congregational church in 1853, 
Rev. Ira Pettibone, who had succeeded the Rev. James Beach in the pas- 
torate of the First Congregational church, tendered his resignation, which 
was accepted, and the Rev. H. A. Russell, a licentiate from the Yale Theo- 
logical Seminary, was called to fill his place, Feb. 11, 1854, and was soon 
afterwards ordained. He was dismissed Aug. 28, 1858, and was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. James B. Pierson, who w r as called Dec. 30, 1859. and 
dismissed March 11, 1862, after which Rev. M. McG. Dana, a licentiate 
of Union Theological Seminary, supplied the pulpit about two years, until 
his call to the pastorate of the First Congregational church in Norwich, 
Connecticut, in December, 1864. The jmlpit was supplied for several 
months by Rev. L. M. Dorman, afterwards settled at Manchester, then 
by Rev. Mr. Page from Durham, for about one year. Rev. J. B. R. 
Walker, then recently from Holyoke, Mass., supplied the pulpit from 
March, 1867, to April, 1869, and was succeeded, as a supply, by Rev. H. 
E. Cooky, from April, 1869, to April, 1870. Rev. Thomas M. Miles, the 
present pastor, on a unanimous call of the church and society, was in- 
stalled on the 10th of November, 1870. 

The two sections of Winsted having become united in one continuous 
village of as compact form as the conformation of the land would admit, 
many questions of police arose which could not be satisfactorily set- 
tled by the town authorities. Street lines needed regulating and a system 
of sidewalks to be established. Fire regulations were indispensable, and 
connected with them, a water supply and tire companies. Municipal reg- 
ulations not required for town governments were needed. 

An application for a borough charter was made to the Assembly in 
1858, which was granted in June, of that year, by which the defunct bor- 
ough charter of Clifton, covering only the West section of the village, 
was repealed, and more enlarged powers conferred on the new body, which 
was organized by an election of the following officers on the second day 
of August of the same year : 



454 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



WILLIAM H. PHELPS, Warden. 

Rollin L. Beecher, 
Edward Camp, 
John T. Rockwell, 
Charles Cook, 
Charles B. Weed, 
John G. Wetmore, 



)■ Burgesses. 



John Hinsdale, Treasurer. 
Caleb P. Newman, Bailiff". 

The attention of the Warden and Burgesses was first directed to the 
improvement of streets, and the laying out and construction of sidewalks. 
A careful survey and plan of all the streets within the borough, as they 
then existed, was made, and sidewalks were ordered to be graded where 
immediately required. 

One of the earliest improvements ordered by the borough authorities 
was the closing of the road through the centre of the East Village Green 
and opening parallel streets on the east and west sides thereof, as already 
described. The intervening area was graded, enclosed with a stone and 
iron railing, and planted with maples, elms, and evergreens by private 
subscriptions at an expense of about two thousand dollars, receiving the 
corporate name of " Park Place." 

The first sidewalk surveyed was along the north and east side of Main 
street, from the corner of Main and North Main streets westerly and 
northerly to corner of Main and Spencer streets, a distance of one mile 
and twenty rods, which was ordered to be graded and rounded to a width 
of five feet. The portion of this walk east of Chestnut street was origi- 
nally planked, and the remaining portion was flagged with North River 
stone. The portion originally planked was, at a later period, flagged with 
concrete. A plank walk was early ordered on the east side of North 
Main street, which, after a few years, was replaced by a concrete walk 
extending northward to the borough line. Another plank walk was laid 
on Main street from the corner of Spencer street to Dudley's tannery, of 
which the portions on the east side have been replaced by concrete. The 
flagged and concrete walks of the borough are believed to exceed a length 
of three miles, and are mainly from five to six feet wide, and in excellent 
condition. 

The organization of a fire department was delayed by reason of a 
general desire to obtain a supply of water for its use, by means of an 
aqueduct from the lake, distributing water to all parts of the borough. 
On the 80th of August, 1858, the warden and burgesses were instructed 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 455 

" to ascertain whether the borough has a right to draw water from Long 
Lake ; whether the amount taken through a six-inch pipe would be 
prejudicial to the manufacturing interests of the borough, and if it proba- 
bly would be so prejudicial, whether, a reservoir of sufficient capacity 
to meet the wants of the borough might not be constantly filled by the 
waslc water of the lake." On the 19th of August, 1859, on report of a 
committee of the warden and burgesses, a petition was brought to the 
assembly of 1860 for power to draw water from the lake on such terms 
and under such limitations as should be prescribed. 

The Assembly, at its May Session in 1860, granted power to the 
warden and burgesses to take water from Long Lake or the Little Pond 
for fire and other purposes, and to raise the surface of the water in said 
lake or pond not exceeding four feet above the then existing high water 
mark, by suitable embankments where necessary, and such water to 
distribute by aqueducts, &c., throughout the borough for all purposes, 
with a proviso that the water should be so taken and distributed for fire 
purposes only, until the lake embankment should be made sufficiently 
high to raise the water of the lake at least three feet above the then 
existing waste-weir near the outlet of the lake, nor until the water shall 
have risen two feet above said waste-weir, and that the person controlling 
the outflow of water for manufacturing purposes shall not permit the 
water to be wasted thereafter in greater quantity than theretofore. Pro- 
vision was also made for the appointment of water commissioners, with 
requisite powers to secure the right of flowage along the shores of the 
lake ; to construct the necessary embankments, to lay and construct all 
necessary pipes and aqueducts, to regulate the distribution and use of the 
water, and establish and collect water rents therefor. The borough was 
authorized to raise by permanent loan a sum not exceeding #25,000, at 
six per cent, interest, to be applied to (he cost and expenses of construc- 
tion of the said water works, and for no other purpose whatever. 

The powers granted as above by the assembly were accepted in a 
borough meeting, on the 1st of August, I860, by a vote of 217 for, and 
68 against the acceptance, and three water commissioners were appointed, 
who at once, proceeded to cany out the necessary measures contemplated 
in their appointment. An imperfect embankment at the outlet of the 
lake was so far completed during the season, that on the 13th of March, 
1861, a rise of water to twenty-four and a half inches above the previous 
high-wafer mark was duly certified. During the following three months 
the rise attained a level of fully four feet above the old high water mark, 
and so overflowed the frail embankment as imminently to threaten its 
destruction, and the consequent deluge of a large portion of the village. 
During the summer and fall the embankment was remodeled and 



456 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

thoroughly perfected, so that no danger of a crevasse has since been 
apprehended. The height of reserve water on the lake, when full, is 
about ten feet above the bottom of the gates through which it is drawn 
for manufacturing purposes. 

During the making of the original embankment in 1860, a main pipe 
of sheet iron, lined within and without with water cement, having an 
interior diameter of nine inches, was carried from the lake, under Lake 
street, and thence under Main street ; from the corner of Speacer street 
in a six-inch pipe of same materials, to the corner of Noith Main street? 
and thence in a four-inch pipe under North Main street to the corner of 
Wallen street, and from Lake street through Meadow street. In 1864 
pipes were laid under Prospect street, and extensions made in other 
directions. Branches have been since laid from year to year, until 
nearly every street in the borough, sufficiently below the level of the 
lake, is now (1872) supplied with water for lire and family purposes, the 
whole length of pipe of all sizes amounting to about six and a half miles. 
The surface elevation of the lake is about 150 feet above the corner of 
Lake and Main streets, and over 200 feet above the terminus of pipe 
under North Main street. Experience has proved that with the free — 
not to say wasteful — use of the water thus far permitted, the size of the 
main pipe has become insufficient for fire purposes in the remote parts of 
the borough, and that the sheet iron and cement pipes are insufficient to 
sustain the pressure. This has become so apparent that measures have 
already been adopted, and partially carried out, for substituting a twelve- 
inch cast iron pipe from the Lake to Main street, with the expectation 
of being obliged, at no distant period, to substitute enlarged pipes of • ast 
iron throughout the borough. 

In November, 1862, the Fire Department was organized by dividing the 
borough into four fire districts, to be under the control of a fire warden, 
and an assistant fire warden, in each district, each district to be furnished 
with a hose cart, supplied with not less than 300 feet of hose, and other 
necessary apparatus, to be worked by a volunteer fire company of ten or 
more members. For the streets of the borough not supplied with avail- 
able water, which could be thrown upon its buildings directly from the 
hydrants, only one fire engine has been provided, and this is rarely used. 

In 1864 the assembly authorized the establishment of a police court, 
with power to determine all cases for violation of the by-laws or ordinances 
of the borough, and also to have the same powers and privileges within 
the borough as are exercised by justices of the peace within the town, 
and during the same or following year, a borough building, with a lockup 
in the basement, and accommodations for borough meetings and police 
courts, was erected near the corner of Main and Bridge streets. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 457 

The Winsted Gas Company, a private enterprise, was organized in 
1861, with a capital inadequate to its successful operation and extension, 
lis operations are confined to the portion of Main street west of Chestnut 
street. The company greatly needs an increase of capital, and an entire 
renovation. Its entire extinction, and the organization of a new com- 
pany, with greatly enlarged means and energetic direction, is exceedingly 
desirable. 

The following manufacturing enterprises were organized or enlarged 
during this decade : — 

James S. and John T. Rockwell erected the tannery on Main street, 
now owned by John T. Rockwell, in 1852. 

The Eagle Works, a joint-stock company, for manufacturing table 
cutlery, erected a brick factory on the lake stream in 1852, and con- 
tinued its operations until 1856, when the establishment was sold to Rice, 
Lathrop & Clary, and was thereafter operated by the successive firms of 
Rice & Lathrop, and Lathrop & Barton. The original building was 
burned down in I860, and two wooden factory buildings were afterwards 
erected, which are now standing. 

The brick factory on Mad River, adjoining Lake street bridge, was 
erected for a machine shop by John Boyd, in 1853. 

The Winsted Auger Co., a joint-stock corporation, erected a factory in 
1853, near the corner of Main and Coe streets, in which they manufac- 
tured augers until 1860, when it was sold to Rice & Lathrop, soon after 
which it was burned down and rebuilt. It is now operated as a table 
cutlery establishment by Wm. P. Lathrop. 

In 1852, the Cook Axle Company erected a brick factory building on 
the site of the old Reuben Cook forge in the east village, which was 
operated by them until about 1864, after which it went into the hands of 
R. Cook & Sons, by whom it has since been carried on. 

Benjamin and Edward Woodall erected, about 1853, a factory for 
making steel fire irons, on the site of Halsey Burr's abandoned scythe 
works on North Main street, which, in 1854, became the property of 
"The "Winsted Shovel and Tongs Company," a short-lived joint-stock 
association, which ceased operations about 1857. 

In 1854 The Clifton Lumber Company erected the factory building 
nearly opposite the Naugatuck Railroad depot on Willow street, now 
occupied by the Winsted Printing Company, which was operated as a 
planing mill and sash and blind factory, and propelled by the first steam 
engine employed in the borough. The business not proving satisfactory, 
the building was used for a brief period by the American Percussion 
Cap Company, and in 1863 was purchased l>y The Borden Condensed 
Milk Company, which used it in their manufacturing business until 1866. 
58 



458 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

In 1859 the Green Wood Agricultural Park Association was formed, 
and during the next year purchased the land for its park, graded tlie 
trotting course, and erected a building for agricultural exhibitions. 
Trotting courses were then at the spring tide of popularity, and country 
agricultural exhibitions had not been played out. More than one hun- 
dred subscribers from within and without the borough took stock in the 
concern, many of them believing it was to turn out a profitable invest- 
ment. It has as yet made no dividends, and none are looked for. 

The Empire Knife Company grew out of a small pocket cutlery 
concern, established by Thompson & Gascoigne, about 1853, and soon 
afterwards transferred to Beardsley & Alvord, who, in 1856, erected the 
factory buildings at the lake outlet, enlarged the business, and placed 
it on a permanent basis. 

Before the middle of this decade the prosperity of Winsted was seri- 
ously retarded by one of the periodical revulsions of business which 
follows excessive stimulation. The banks, alarmed by their over-issues, 
checked the high speed of enterprise by a sudden application of the 
brakes, which prostrated some establishments and crippled many others, 
the severest calamities falling on the improvident borrowers from the 
savings and building associations, who were largely mechanics, dependent 
on daily and constant wages for meeting their monthly payments. Build- 
ing of new houses entirely ceased, and large numbers of those already 
built came on a market destitute of buyers at any price. Many of our 
worthy mechanics sought in other places and in other pursuits to support 
their families and retrieve their losses. This state of things could not 
long continue in a community, blessed with the recuperative, power which 
has signally characterized our business interests. The lowest point of 
depression had been reached, and signs of returning prosperity had 
become apparent in 1860. 

Notwithstanding the depression referred to, the proportional increase 
of population, buildings, manufactures, banking capital and moneyed 
investments was far greater than in any preceding decade. The opening 
of the Naugatuck Railroad made an outlet for our heavy manufactured 
articles never before enjoyed, and brought in a large number of new 
business men. The trading business of adjoining towns was largely 
attracted to this as the common center. Very little capital was brought 
in from abroad. Its rapid accumulation grew out of the profits of home 
business, stimulated by improved facilities. 

The succeeding decade, though showing a substantial and healthy 
growth, will not exhibit as large a proportionate increase, owing to 
exorbitant freight charges, and the consequent superior facilities for the 
manufacture of heavy goods nearer to tide water. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 



459 



We compile abstracts of taxable property and polls in Winsted on the 
lists of 1850 and 18G0, as follows: — 







1850. 




I860. 


Items. 












No. 


Amount. 


No. 


Amount. 


Dwelling houses, 


311 


$161,180 


494 ' 


$504,330 


Acres of land, 


2 278 


180,103 


8,864 


188,880 


Mills, stores, and factories, 


' 48 


66,320 


82 


196,505 


Horses, .... 


177 


9,143 


192 


18,477 


Neat cattle, .... 


1,201 


15,397 


826 


18,519 


Sheep, swine, &c, . 





— 




294 


Coaches and carriages, 




5,389 




8,320 


Farming utensils, . 




2,957 




25 


Clocks and watches, . 




899 




5,350 


Pianos and Melodeons, . 




1,141 




5,927 


Household furniture, . 




57.810 




4,225 


Bank and insurance stocks, . 




79,073 




211,130 


Turnpike stocks, 




— 




225 


Railroad bonds, 




5,400 




19,250 


Investments in trade, . 




24,450 




79,650 


" in manufactures, . 




41,245 




142,545 


" in vessels, 




520 




200 


Money at interest, . 




76,074 




107,192 


" on hand, .... 




— 




2,897 


Taxable property, . 




18,555 




825 


Taxable polls, .... 


383 




743 





The population of the town had increased 'during this decade from 
2,179 to 3,550, and Winchester Society having continued stationary, at 
about 500, the increase in Winsted was 1,371. It thus appears that in 
taxable property and population Winsted Society had more than doubled. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

WAR OF THE REBELLION.— VOLUNTEERS IN THE SERVICE.— CONTRIBUTIONS OF 
MONEY AND SUPPLIES. 

1861 to 1871. 

"Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof" 
was the prophetic inscription on the bell which, on the fourth of July, 
1776, announced the birth of our nation. Its tones were freighted with 
the solemn declaration "that all men are created equal, and endowed by 
their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness." On this fundamental principle our forefathers, appealing to 
the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, 
severed their connection with Britain, and fought to a triumphant end 
the Revolutionary War. 

On the return of peace, a more perfect union of the states, in order to 
secure unity, justice, domestic tranquility, and the blessings of liberty, 
was found needful, and the convention of 1787 was assembled. A con- 
stitution was framed, nearly perfect in its distribution of political powers, 
but marred by compromising the first principle of the declaration of 
independence — the principle of universal liberty. 

The bitter fruits of this compromise could not then be foreseen. Slave 
labor was then unprofitable in most of the states, and scarcely remunera- 
tive in any of them. The delusion that slavery, let alone, would die a 
natural death, was dotingly cherished as an opiate to tender consciences, 
made restive by this first desecration of the " Higher Law " of God and 
humanity. The mill of the gods ground slow, and was unheeded. The 
cotton gin was invented. The foundations of slavery were strengthened 
and enlarged. When it demanded an extension of its domain over the 
virgin soil of Missouri, before consecrated to freedom by a solemn ordi- 
nance, conscience was aroused, and resistance was made. The nation 
was convulsed as never before. The struggle was fearful, and was 
quieted by another unholy compromise, making the parallel of 36° 30' 
the dividing line between the law of God and the enactments of man. 

Again all was peace and concord. The eloquent statesman of 
Kentucky was baptized "The Great Compromiser," and gloried in the 



FAMILY RECORDS. 461 

title. One senator of freedom-loving Massachusetts pronounced the 
Declaration of Independence " a string of glittering generalities," and 
another — the very Jupiter Tonans of the North, the expounder -par 
excellence of the constitution — eloquently adjured his constituents to 
conquer their prejudices and sustain the Fugitive Slave Law. 

The mill of the gods, though the sound of its grinding had grown 
nearly inaudible, still ground on. 

As early as 1880 voices crying here and there in the wilderness began 
to be heard protesting against the abominations of slavery and the sub- 
serviency in the North to the behests of slave owners. Such utterances 
were denounced by the pulpit, the press, and the pot-house ; yet they 
found a lodgment in many thoughtful minds and tender consciences. 
The press began to v teem with anti -slavery publications, and petitions for 
the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia flowed into Congress. 
Joshua R. Giddings dared to advocate them in the Hall of Representatives, 
and old John Quincy Adams bravely sustained him. The South impe- 
riously demanded that free speech and a free press should be put down, 
and the right of petition withheld. The northern pulpit uttered an 
uncertain sound. Orville Dewey, President Lord, and the Princeton 
Divines upheld the institution as not only patriarchal but divine. Ca-tle 
Garden, backed by the mercantile community of New York, proscribed 
every trader who refused to sell his principles with his goods. Garrison 
was dragged through the streets of Baltimore and Boston with a halter 
around his neck. Lovejoy was shot down while defending his free press 
in Illinois ; Sumner was brutally knocked down in the senate chamber, 
and old John Brown was hung in Virginia. The mill of the gods ground 
on with accelerating motion and fearful power. Lincoln was elected, 
and Sumpter bombarded. 

Our last decade opens with this consummated crisis. It is our pur- 
pose not to dwell on the grand national results achieved, but to detail the 
humble though creditable contribution of moral force, men and means, 
made by this town to the common cause, and to commemorate the ser- 
vices of our noble boys who responded to their country's call and fought 
her battles. 

Anti-slavery sentiment had become more pervasive and incisive in our 
town than in any other in Western Connecticut before the outbreak of 
the rebellion. At the organization of the Free Soil Party it commanded 
a decided plurality of all the votes in the town, but the unwise nomina- 
tion of Van Buren for President paralyzed its power as a political 
organization. Large numbers, thoroughly imbued with anti-slavery 
sentiments, would not fight under such a vulpine leader. They fell back, 
mainly into the Whig party, and infused into it all the vitality that sur- 



462 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

vived its dead issues. The party died, and its free soil element formed 
the germ of the Republican organization. There was also an infusion of 
free soil sentiment in the Democratic party, surviving the Van Buren 
fiasco, which fused with the Republican element, and consolidated the 
party that carried us safely through the mightiest civil convulsion 
recorded in history. 

The bombardment of Sumpter flew over the telegraph wires on Saturday, 
April 4, 1861, and electrified the country to a degree not exceeded by the 
news of Bunker Hill. A nation educated for more than half a century to 
peace secured by successive compromises of moral principle, and so pro- 
ficient in this teaching tha 1 the announcement of a Higher Law than the 
Constitution by a New York senator was denounced as* traitorous by many 
of his compeers ; a nation which had long worshipped money-bags as its 
gods, and served cotton as its king — was suddenly called to face the alter- 
native of relentless slave domination for all future time or a war without 
parallel in the world's annals. 

On Sunday the oth, while yet the smoke of battle hung over Charleston 
Harbor, humble prayer was ascending to the God of Battles from a 
thousand sanctuaries throughout the Northern and Eastern states. Divine 
guidance was implored and granted. Patriotism, long dormant and seem- 
ingly dead, was revived and brought into vigorous power, as if by inspi- 
ration. The news was communicated to Rev. Mr. Eddy while finishing 
his sermon for the day. A new text was selected and a new sermon 
blocked out under the inspiration of the event, which electrified his 
hearers, and raised them to the plane of his own patriot ardor. The 
same spirit pervaded the other ministers and congregations. The key note 
was struck and the community marched to the inspiring music. A citi- 
zens' meeting was notified from the pulpits of three of our churches for 
that evening. The meeting was held in our largest hall, which was 
crowded to its utmost- capacity. Party prejudices were dissipated; treas- 
onable utterances were silenced ; factious pretences were scattered to the 
winds. The fog of disloyalty rose with the smoke over Charleston Har- 
bor, disclosing as clear a sky and as pure an atmosphere as was breathed 
by our Revolutionary fathers. The following address to Governor Buck- 
ingham was drafted, and immediately signed by nearly two hundred citizens. 

" To His Excellency, Win. A. Buckingham, Governor of the State of 

Connecticut : 

Sm : Inasmuch as a spirit of unbridled license and treasonable disloy- 
alty at the South, under a governmental policy too mild and passive, has 
now ripened into open rebellion threatening the dismemberment of the 
republic, and immediate and utter failure of the great American experi- 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 463 

ment of a people ruling itself — and inasmuch as events now transpiring in 
Charleston Harbor render it evident that the general government has 
entered upon a contest requiring the spontaneous and cordial co-operation 
of all loj'al states and citizens, — 

Therefore, we, the undersigned, feeling that Connecticut is called upon, 
now and at once, to proffer its aid to the General Government in defence 
of the Union, the Constitution and Laws, respectfully request Governor 
Buckingham to adopt such measures as shall afford this state an opportu- 
nity to place her resources at the disposal of the General Government." 

The call of Lincoln for volunteers speedily followed, and was promptly 
responded to. Enlistment papers were prepared and presented at a pub- 
lic meeting. Samuel B. Home, an unassuming boy of scarce eighteen 
years, and in reduced circumstances, was the first to come forward and 
enroll his name. He served out his three months' term, and in October 
of the same year enlisted as a private in company E, Eleventh Infantry 
Volunteers; was chosen a sergeant, and rose by promotion to first lieu- 
tenant and captain; was in twenty-five battles and skirmishes — was three 
times wounded ; and at the end of his three years term served as Provost 
Marshal of the Eighteenth Army Corps to the end of the war. On re- 
tiring from the service, he studied law, was admitted to the bar of Litch- 
field county and is now a practising lawyer at Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

The following other Winchester recruits enrolled themselves in the squad 
that formed the nucleus of Infantry Company B, first organized in this 
town : — 

Abram G. Kellogg, Caleb P. Newman, Francis T. Brown, Mason 
Atkins, Daniel Bellows, George Bellows, Jr., Henry Bradley, Frederick 
W. Daniels, Edward E. Day, Charles O. Dennen, Robert Dempsey, 
Fernando Gale, Westley Gale, Dennis Glynn, Charles Harris, Samuel 
B. Home, George L. Leonard, James McCauley, Charles C. Potter, 
Charles Presber, Henry Roberts, William H. Strong, Joel G. Thorpe, 
Charles Vogel, Hubert A. Warner, and Henry Williams. 

Two other squads of recruits having been now enrolled in New Hart- 
ford and Canton, together with six individuals from Norfolk, two from 
Barkhamsted, and one each from Colebrook, Salisbury, Woodbury, and 
Harwinton ; they were all united with the Winchester squad, as company 
B of the Second Infantry, under Abram G. Kellogg, of Winchester, as 
Captain, and Charles W. Morse and Charles Wan-en, of Nev Hartford 
and Canton, as lieutenants. 

We copy from the Winsted Herald of April 2G, 1861, the following 
account of the departure of this company. 

"On Sabbath (April 20, 1861) the company attended Mr. Eddy's 
church, where a powerful discourse was preached from 1st Samuel iv. 9. 
Orders were received on Sunday evening, instructing the company to pro- 



464 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

ceed to the state rendezvous at New Haven the next day. We must be 
short with the proceedings of Monday — the suspension of business, the 
thronged streets, the banners and the martial strains, the procession of 
adventurous and patriotic youth through our streets to the depot — that 
prayer from the platform of the station, listened to as was never a prayer 
listened to before by this generation, the twice a thousand faces wet with 
tears which the manliest sought not to hide, the good-byes, short, but too 
long for choking voices fully to utter, the huzzas, and then as the train 
wound slowly around the hill, the oppressive stillness, broken by no rude 
word, but only sobs and low-toned syllables of consolation. There were 
wliole chapters in these scenes, but we pass them. Every hamlet in the 
whole North, from Maine's wilderness to the Western Desert, is witness 
of the same. Northern blood is up, and history, faster than pen can write, 
is making." 

" The trip of this company to New Haven," adds the Herald, " was not 
calculated to dispirit them. Word of their coming had gone down by the 
morning train, and receptions the most enthusiastic and soul-stirring 
awaited them at every depot on the route. Bands of music were playing, 
salutes firing, banners spanning the track, wherever the train halted. 
Patriotic speeches were made and responded to at the principal depots, 
and the whole trip was attended by the heartiest manifestations of sym- 
pathetic patriotism. At Wolcottville the reception was specially pleasing, 
and a banner with the words " We will soon follow you," attested the fact 
that her young men will not allow the victory to be won without assisting 
to achieve it. The boys were quartered at New Haven in a spacious 
hall near the depot. We saw them safely to bed and tucked in, with each 
his mattress and blanket, at a good seasonable hour — saw the ranks num- 
bering ninety-seven lusty and hearty fellows at breakfast next morning, 
and afterwards on parade in front of the state house. They are a plucky 
crew, and if ever they get into action we shall be willing to stake the rep- 
utation of our section upon their good behavior." 

The spirit of enlistment had hardly been aroused when Company B 
was transferred to New Haven. Simultaneous with its departure, the 
enrollment of another company was called for and opened, and was filled 
with the elite of our young men in a single week. The company was 
organized as Rifle Company E, 2d Connecticut Infantry, with the follow- 
ing rank and file: — From Winchester, Captain Sherman T. Cooke, 1st 
Lieutenant, Wheelock T. Batcheller ; 2d Lieutenant, Charles E. Palmer ; 
1st Sergeant, Jeffrey Skinner; Sergeants, James N. Coe, Charles L. 
Hosford, Lucien B. Wheelock; Corporals, George L. Andrews, Alanson 
D. Bunnell, Edward Didsbury, Jacob T. Brown ; musician, Hicks 
Seaman (?) ; privates, Antoiue Albert, Hyppolite Bluet, Albert M. 
Beach, Edwiu Beach, Ira C. Bailey, Decius C. Bancroft, Gustave 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 465 

Bernhardt, James M. Burton, Victor Claudet, Chauncey D. Cleveland, 
Daniel S. Coe, David W. Coe, William S. Cooper, Samuel A. 
Cooper, "William Couch, Chauncey S. Crittenden, John M. Dennan, 
James Dennan, Edgar V. Doughty, Burton B. Evitts, Philip D. Fisk, 
Daniel Fitzpatrick, Salmon A. Granger, Leonard S. Harris, William 
F. Hatch, Junior, Nelson Hodges, William S. Holabird, Benjamin F. 
Hosford, George Hoskin, Orson Howard, James N. Latham, Frank 
B. Marsh, Lorenzo Martin, Alexander McGuire, Milton T. Moore, 
Augustus Nevins, Leander Packard, George W. Pendleton, Charles [H. 
Pond, Frederick H. Presber, James Price, Hiram C. Roberts, William 
E. Snediker, Orlo S. Smith, Charles H. Stewart, Plainer S. Sweet, 
George M. Van Oustrom, Herbert L. Veber, Arthur Wads worth, Joseph 
Watson, Thomas Welch, John P. Wilbur, Marcus J. Whitehead, John 
Wheeler, and James G. Woodruff. 

The following members of this company came from adjoining towns : — 
From Norfolk, Privates Samuel C. Barnum, Charles N. Decker, George 
J. Kermann, Samuel J. Mills, Calvin N. Sage, and John M. Walker. 
From Torrington, Privates Henry G. Colt and George M. Evans. 
From Mill River, Mass., Alonzo H. Conklin. 

Company B was sent into camp at New Haven without uniforms or 
equipments, and was the last company of the regiment uniformed and 
equipped before being mustered into the United States service. Our 
patriotic male and female citizens determined that Company E should be 
promptly provided for. Cloth and trimmings of best quality were pur- 
chased, and measures adopted for working them into uniforms. On the 
arrival of the materials the master tailors of the town volunteered their 
aid in cutting and superintending the making up of the garments, without 
compensation, and all the sempstresses who could sew a strong seam 
went to work with a will on the same terms. The sewing machines 
from far and near were gathered at Camp's Hall, and the work went 
bravely on. Sunday came, and they had so crowded on the cutters that 
the latter had to work through the Sabbath to get ahead of them. 
Monday and Tuesday, and all the days of the week, the work went on 
with unabated ardor ; those ladies who could not do the stronger work 
made up the shirts and other lighter garments. There were no idlers, 
and i'ew inefficients. It was the women's battle week, and was bravely 
fought out on that line. Eighty-three uniform coats, pants, and vests 
made, and thoroughly made, were the product of that week's work, more 
thau fifty of them made up by Winsted ladies, and the residue by ladies 
in adjoining towns. In addition to this contribution more than a hundred 
woollen shirts were made up prior to and during this battle week.* 

* The following complimentary notice appeared in the Winsted Herald of May 17, 
1861 ; — "It is said, since our soldiers' uniforms are completed, that there are now, 
59 



466 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Every man in both companies was also supplied with a rosette of white, 
red and blue, a " housewife " filled with thread, yarn, pins, needles, and 
buttons, and a pocket Testament. Innumerable other articles, including 
socks, wrappers, drawers, and medicines — more than the soldiers' knap- 
sacks could hold — were furnished by individuals. A revolver was 
given to each Winchester man in Company B. 

Company B departed for New Haven before enthusiasm had been 
wrought up to its highest strain. On the departure of Company E, on 
the 25ih of April, its fullest intensi y was manifested. Thousands 
assembled. Patriotic speeches were made by Rev. Messrs-. Eddy, 
Loom's, and Pierson, of the Congregational and .Methodist Churches; by 
Rev. Father Mullen, of the Catholic Church, and by several laymen.* 

Company E, on its departure for New Haven on the 25th of April 
received an ovation in all respects similar to. but on a larger i-cale than 
that given to Company B on the 21st. It was emphatically a town com- 
pany, while Company B was a contribution of three towns Wore than 
half of them were mechanics, about one-fourth were farmers, and the 
remainder, in about equal proportion-, were clerks and laborers. Ger- 
many had six representatives, Ireland three, and England one. 

Both companies were thoroughly drilled, while at New Haven, by 
cadets from General Rus-ell's Military School. On the "27th of May 
tiey were mustered into the government service, and on the evening of 
that dav were embai'ked on the steamer Bienville for Washington, by 
way of Fortress Monroe and the Potomac River. On reaching their 
destination the)' we e encamped and drilled on the height north of 
W; isiington for several weeks, after which they were marched to the 
neigi borhood of Falls Church in Virginia, within some five miles of 
Fairfax Court House, which was occupied by a rebel force. Here they 
remained, except during the interval of their march to, and retreat from, 
Bull Run, until near the expiration of their term of service, when tl^y 
wi re mustered out at New Haven. Wi lithe exception of Private James 
M. Burton, who died of diphtheria at New Haven Hospital, on the clay 

probably, not to exceed five girls in Winsted who cannot cut, baste, stitch, and make 
up to oider any article of men's apparel, from the finest dress coal to t he commonest 
mustn't-mention ems, in a style, too, of unsurpassed neatness and excellence. Before 
the war .there were probably not five girls within the same locality who could sew on 
a hat hand or a suspender button without double the labor in showing required to do 
the work in the first instance. So here is another good < oine- from the war." 

* Among other ceremonies of this occasion, two Colts' revolvers wire formally 
presented by Mrs. Julia Peck — one to Captain ('ok. and the oilier to Private Boyd, 
the latter as n compliment to the eldest enrolled member of the company. After the 
relu-al to mus er in Mr. B. on account of his age, he gave his revolver to Chaplain 
Eddy, wuli iiistiuetions to present it at the end of the term of service to the private 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 457 

after mustering in, not a death occurred in the company during its term 
of service. 

While stationed at the Falls Church encampment, Captain A. G. 
Kellogg, of Company B , when on picket duty, a mile or more from 
camp, was captured by the rebels and hurried off to Richmond, and 
thence taken to Salisbury, N. C, whence, after nearly a year's captivity, 
he was sent to Potomac Creek and exchanged. 

Rev. Hiram Eddy, pastor of the Second Congregational Church of 
Winsted, was appointed by Governor Buckingham chaplain of the Second 
Regiment, and on leave of absence from his pastoral charge, that he 
might be with the boys he had, by his patriotic eloquence, cheered "on 
[towards] Richmond," joined the regiment at Falls Church. At the 
rout of Bull Run lie got separated from hi- comrade-, and after wander- 
ing in uncertain ways tor more than two days was captii'ed by the rebels 
within a mile of the encampment at Falls Church, to which his regiment 
had retreated after the battle. I lis lofty stature and Daniel We-sterian 
visage and mien deeply impressed his captors and guards. He was at 
once conducted to Richmond, and admitted to the hospitalities of the 
Tobacco Warehou-e, after availing himself of which, to more than his 
heart's content, he was transferred to Columbia. S. C, and thence to 
Charleston, where he was treated to a course of yellow fever. The Hell 
of Andersonville had not yet been organized, else he would, doubtless, 
have been con-igned to its torments. After grinding in these Philistine 
mills for more than a year he was exchanged, and welcomed hack to his 
parochial charg with such an ovation as le>v mini ters li ive 1 n joyed. 
During his captivity his clerica brethren of neigh oring parishes with 
the con>ent of their people, gratuitously suppl ed hi- pulpit, for the benefit 
of his family, for more than six months. 

Private Samuel A. Cooper, of company E. was attached as an Orderly 
to the staff of General Tyler during the battle of Bull Run, and was 
captured by the rebe's. lie performed a tour of prison dut\ at nearly 
all the stations from Richmond to New Orleans, and thence back to 
North Carolina, where he was exchanged, and rea lied home a little be- 
fore Air. Eddy. 



who should have proved the mint meritorious soldier of the company. The weapon 
was lost at Bull Run, an 1 con-equ ntly no award was made, I m it was penerayy 
conceded that by right of merit it >hould have been aw rded to Private Alonzo II 
Conklin, of Mill River, Mass., who, on the march to Bull Run, fou rl his teet so 
blistered by a pair of tight boots, that he threw them away near Centervd'e, and 
made a pair of moc a-ins out of the leg? of his pants, in which he ,-e ved through the 
day of battle and 0.1 the ret. eat without com .1 liut or flinching. 



468 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

A large portion of the officers and soldiers of these companies, from 
time to time, re-enlisted into other regiments, and were largely promoted 
to higher grades. Among them were the following : 

Geo. L. Andrews, Corp. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Sergt. Co. F, 28th Conn. Infantry. 
Mason Adkins, Priv. Co. B, 2d Infantry, to 1st Sergt. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 
Antoine Albert, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Priv. and Veteran Co. G, 12th Infantry. 
Wheelock T. Batcheller, 1st Lieut. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Major 28th Infantry. 
Jacob T. Brown, Corp. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Corp. Co. B, 12th Infantry; killed at 

Cedar Creek. 
Francis T. Brown, Sergt. Co. B, 2d Infantry, to Capt. Co. E, 11th Infantry. 
Daniel Bellows, Priv. Co. B, 2d Infantry, to Corp. and Vet, Co. E, 7th Infantry. 
Geo. Bellows, Jr., Priv. Co. B, 2d Infantry, to Priv. and Vet. Co. E, 7th Infantry ; 

mortally wounded at Hampton, Va. 
James N. Coe, Sergt. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to 1st Lieut. Co. I, and Capt. Co. H, 2d 

Heavy Artillery. 
Daniel S. Coe, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to 2d Lieut. Co. E, 7th Infantry. 
David W. Coe, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, and detailed Clerk to Gen. Tyler and Major 

General Keys, U. S. A., enlisted on U. S. Frigate Sabine, and served as Executive 

Officers' Clerk. 
Wm. S. Cooper, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Corp. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 
Frederick W. Daniels, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Sergt. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artillery, 

killed at Cold Harbor, Va. 
Robert Dempsey, Priv. Co. B, 2d Infantry, to 1st Lieut. Co. E, 7th Infantry; kill »d 

at Olustee, Fla. 
Salmon A. Granger, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to 1st Lieut. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artiller •. 
Charles E. Hosford, Sergt. Co. E., 2d Infantry, to Capt. Co. D, 11th Infantry. 
Benj. S. Hosford, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Capt. Co. D, 2d Heavy Artillery ; 

killed at Cedar Creek. 
Geo. Hoskins, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Priv. Co. F, 28th Infantry. 
Orson Howard, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Capt. 9th N. Y. Heavy Artillery ; killed 

at Petersburg, Va. 
Samuel B. Home, Priv. Co. B, 2d Infantry, to Sergt., Lieut., and Capt. Co. F, 11th 

Infantry. 
Geo. L. Leonard, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Priv. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 
Benj. F. Marsh, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Corp. Co. F, 28th Infantry; lost an arm 

at Port Hudson. 
Milton T. Moore, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Sergt. Co. F, 28th Infantry. 
Caleb P. Newman, 1st Sergt. Co. C, 2d Infantry, to 1st Lieut. Co. F, 28th Infantry. 
Fred. O. Peck, Priv. Co. D, 2d Infantry, to Priv. 22d Mass. Infantry ; twice wounded 

at Gaines' Mill, Va. 
Charles E. Palmer, 2d Lieut. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Capt. Co. E, 7th Infantry ; died 

at Hilton Head, S. C. 
Leander Packard, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Priv. Co. E, 11th Infantry. 
Hiram C. Roberts, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Sergt. Co. E, I lth Infantry; killed at 

Sharpsburg, Md. 
Henry L. Roberts, Priv- Co. B, 2d Infantry, to Sergt. Co. F, 28th Infantry. 
Jeffrey Skinner, 1st Sergt. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Capt. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artillery; 

promoted to Major and Lieut. Col. same regiment. 
Orlo S. Smith, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to 1st Lieut, Co. I, 2d Heavy Artillery. 
Lucien B. Wheelock, Sergt. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Capt. Co. F, 28th Infantry. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 469 

Marcus J. Whitehead, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Priv. Co. E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 
John Wheeler, Priv. Co. E, 2d Infantry, to Sergt. Co. F, 1st and 2d Lieut. Co. G, 
2d Heavy Artillery. 

The first regiment of cavalry was originally a battalion consisting of 
four companies, recruited in the fall of 1861, and about a year after was 
increased to a full regiment of twelve companies. 

The following Winchester men are found on its rolls : 

In company A, Privates Frank Parkant and Geo. L. Leonard. 

D, " Win. C. Wakefield. 

" " E, " James G. Ferris and Nelson Proper. 
" " F, " Michael Finn and John Gloster. 

" " K, " Burton B. Beach. 
" « M, " John Rose. 

Unassigned substitutes: Win. Clancey, Michael Calahau, James B'lynn, 
James H. Gannon, Hugh Gray, Wm. Garson, Charles Hull, John Harris, 
Charles Earne, Richard Mooney, John Schmidt, Julius Thorne, Thomas 
Daley, Peter Dunn, James Taylor, and Augustus Weiss. 

Of these, Julius Thorne alone died in the service. 

The Fifth Regiment Infantry was organized in June, 1861, and went 
into service July 29 following; fought at Winchester, Cedar Mountain, 
and Chancellorsville, Va. ; Gettysburg, Pa. ; Reseca, Dallas, Marietta, 
Beach Tree Creek, and Atlanta, Ga. ; Chesterfield C. H., S. C. ; and 
Silver Run, N. C. ; and was mustered out with distinguished honor, July 
19, 1865. On the rolls of this regiment, we find the following names of 
Winchester men : 

Harlan P. Rugg, Corporal in Co. I, wounded at Cedar Mountain, 

promoted to Captain, and mustered out July 19, 1865. 
Robert Arnold, killed at Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862. 
Joseph Hermandy, mustered out July 19, 1865. 
William Murray, discharged Feb. 23, 1865. 
Robert St. Clair, mustered out July 19, 1865. 

We also find the names of eleven deserters credited to Winchester, 
probably none of them residents, but recruits purchased by agents of the 
town. 

During the month of September, 1861, a quota of sixteen Winchester 
men and about twenty men from other towns in the county of Litchfield 
were recruited under the auspices of Second Lieutenant Charles C. 
Palmer, late of company E, and on the 7th of September, 1861, were 



470 ANXALS OF WINCHESTER, 

mustered into company E, 7th Infantry, commanded successively by Colo- 
nel Alfred II. Terry and Colonel Joseph R. Hawley. Of this company 
Lieutenant Palmer was appointed captain, and Robert Dempsey, late 
private of Company B, second lieutenant. 

The regiment (1,018 men) left for Washington, September, 1861. It 
was the first to land on the soil of Nouth Carolina. It was in the battle 
of Fort Pulaski, under Colonel Terry, April 10th and 11th, 1862, and 
in the ,bai ties of James Island, June 14th, under Colonel Hawley; was 
one of the first to enter the Held, and the last to leave it. Under the same 
command it was in the battle of Pocataligo on the 22d of October, and 
was subsequently divided, five companies under Colonel Hawley remain- 
ing at Hilton Head, and the. remaining companies, of which Company E 
was one, were moved to Fernandina, Florida, under Lieutenant-Colonel 
Gardiner, and participated in the battle of Olustee, in which Lieutenant 
Robert Dempsey was killed. 

In May, 1861, the regiment was transferred to Bermuda Hundreds, 
Va., and participated in the batle of Chester Station, and repeated bat- 
tles near Bermuda Hundreds. In August it fought the battles of Deep 
Run and Deep Bottom, Va. 

After the promotion of Colonel Hawley to a brigadier in September, 
1864, the regiment, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Rodman, was 
engaged in the battle of Chapin's Farm, Va., on the 29th of September; 
on the 1st of October in the battle near Richmond; on the 7th of New 
Market Roa I ; on the 13th at Darbytown Road, and on the 27th in the 
battle of Charles City Road, Va. Its battle record was cl .sed at Fort 
Fisher, N. O. January loth and 19th, 1865, and it was mustered out of 
service on the 20th of July, 1865. Few regiments in the service were 
engaged in more active and arduous service than the Seventh. It had 90 
men killed in action, 44 died of wounds, and 179 of disease; total, 313. 

The Winchester men in this regiment were Captain Charles E. Palmer, 
1st Lieutenant Robert Dempsey, 2d Lieutenant Daniel S. Coe, Corporals 
Daniel Bellows and John G. Rowley, Privates George E. Andrews, John 
Biederman, Albert Bunlick, George W. Daniels, Charles Gilbert. Charles 
L. Hewitt, Sterling D. Mil iman, James A. Pease, Patrick Quigley, 
Henry II. Rowley, James Tencellent, all of Company E. 

Captain Palmer, an unassuming young man of delicate training, devel- 
oped in his first campaign the highest soldierly qualities by strict and 
cheerful performance of duty, and kind attention to the wants and com- 
forts of his men. But it was not until he came into command of Com- 
pany E that his endurance and bravery were fully tested. In the siege 
and capture of Fort Pulaski he commanded Battery Lincoln; and in the 
report of the bloody battle of Secessionville he was highly complimented 
for bravery and coolness. Soon after this hard fought but unsuccessful 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 471 

battle he died from exposure and exhaustion. From Colonel Terry's let- 
ter to his parents, now bereaved of their last child, we quoie as follows: 

"At the time of the action on James Island he was so ill that, under 
ordinary circumstances, he would not have been in command of his com- 
pany; but prompted by ihe devotion to duty, which always distinguished 
him, he led his company to the fie'd, and e.ave to it and the regiment a 
splendid example of courage and firmness under mo.-t trying circumstances. 
The noble 1 purity and uprightness of his nature and his eminently sol- 
dierly qual ties had endeared him to us all, and had led us to look forward 
to a brilliant futuie for him; and we mourn his loss, not only as ours and 
yours, but as a loss to the country which he served so faithfully." 

In answer to a letter to General Hawley from Palmer Post inviting 
him to the decoration ceremonies at Winsted, dated May 11th, 1872, he 
writes as follows: 

"The name of your post awakens my recollections of that noble soldier 
and man, Captain Palmer. Never shall I forget that it was his extreme 
fidelity to duty that cost him his life, lie ought to have gone to the hos- 
pital, but would not leave the field. Well I remember his countenance as 
I walked by the stretcher that carried him dying on board the steamer." 

Lieutenant Dempsey was wounded in the shoulder June 1st, 1802, re- 
turned home on furlough while disabled, married Caroline W. Ri< hard- 
son, rejoined his regiment in the fall, and was killed at Olustee, Fla., Feb- 
ruary 24th, 18G4. He was of Irish birth, well educated, and devotedly 
patiiotic in the cau-e of his adnpted country. His letters from the camp 
and field, published in the Winsted Herald, were highly appreciated. 

Private Charles Gilbert, noted on the muster-rolls as from Canton, had 
his home residence in Winchester, where he was born and raised. Con- 
scientious as well as patriotic motives induced him to enlist. His broth- 
ers had families, and he was sing'e, and he felt it his duty to represent 
them in the service. He was a most worthy man and a good soldier; was 
wounded in the head and leg at Secessionville, S. C, taken prisoner on 
the field, and carried to Charleston, where he died of "his wounds in the 
hospital, July 9th, 18G2, aged 29. He was a son of Samuel D. Gilbert, 
deceased, late of Winchester. 

Private George Bellows served in Company B, 2d Infantry, and after 
honorable discharge at the end of the t< rm, enlisted in Company E, 7th 
Infantry. September 7th, 1861,-and re-enlisted a veteran, December 22d, 
18G4, and died of wounds received at Hampton, Va., October 28th, 1804. 
He was son of George Bellows, Sr., of Winchester, and died unmarried. 



472 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Private Albert Burdick, Company E, died of fever at Beaufort, S. C, 
July 29th, 1862. 

Private John Biederman re-enlisted a veteran, December 22d, 1863, 
and was killed October 13th, 1864. 

All the other members of this company wei'e honorably discharged or 
mustered out at the end of their terms. 

In the 8th Regiment, recruited at Camp Buckingham, Hartford, which 
fought at Newbern, N. C, Fort Macon, N. C, Antietam, Md., Fredericks- 
burg, Fort Huger, Walthall Junction, Fort Darling, Petersburg, and 
Fort Harrison, Va., we find the names of two Winchester men, Mathew 
Whiffler, private, Company A, and John C. Cooley, corporal, Company 
C, re-enlisted veteran, both mustered out at the end of their terms. 

In the 9th (Irish) Regiment we find the name of Chaplain Daniel 
Mullen, at the time of his appointment pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic 
Church, Winsted, a young man of literary culture and earnest patriotism, 
who served at Baton Rouge, and Chackaloo Station, La., and Deep 
Bottom, Va. He was compelled, by ill-health, to resign on the 26th of 
August, 1862. He was succeeded as chaplain by Father Leo da Saracena, 
O.S.F., the present pastor of St. Joseph's Church, and President of St. 
Francis' Literary and Theological Seminary. 

It is not to be inferred, from finding no other names of Winchester 
Irishmen on the rolls of this regiment, that our foreign citizens were 
wanting in patriotism, for the names of Winchester men in other regi- 
ments abundantly show that in proportion to our population Irishmen, 
Germans, and Englishmen are amply represented. 

On the roll of the 10th Regiment the only name of a Winchester man 
is that of Colonel Ira W. Pettibone, who was commissioned as Major, 
served in the battles of Roanoke Island and Newbern, N. C, and was 
successively promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel. The climate 
of North Carolina debilitated him to such a degree that he was compelled 
to resign, and he was honorably discharged in November, 1862. 

The 12th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry was recruited at Camp 
Lyon, Hartford, under command of Colonel Henry C. Deming ; was 
attached to Butler's Division, and sailed from New York for Ship 
Island, Mississippi Sound, February 24, 1862.' It followed the naval 
armament, under Farragut, up the Mississippi, and witnessed the bom- 
bardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philip ; followed the armament up to 
New Orleans, where it landed, and garrisoned the city on its forced 
surrender, Colonel Deming assuming the office of provisional mayor. It 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 473 

was encamped for a time at Baton Rouge, and was afterwards engaged in 
active service in Louisiana. It bore a conspicuous part in the siege of 
Port Hudson, after which it returned to New Orleans, and in July, 1864, 
embarked for Fortress Monroe, and in August following joined Sheridan's 
army in the Shenandoah Valley, and participated in the battles of 
Opequau, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek, after which, it having been 
reduced to a skeleton by losses in battle, and by disea e, and by expira- 
tion of the term of service of a large portion of its men, it was reorgan- 
ized under Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis, and continued to serve in Virginia 
until its muster out in August, 1865. 

Only six Winchester men belonged to this regiment, as follows.: — 
Doctor John B. Welch, "2d assistant-surgeon, who died of scarlatina, on 
shipboard, at Ship Island, February 13, 1862. He was son of Dr. 
James and Mrs. Lavinia Welch of Winsted, born at W., September 
14, 1838; studied in his father's office ; graduated M.I), at Yale College 
in 1860 ; mustered 2d Assistant-surgeon of 12th Regiment, December 11, 
1861 ; sailed with the regiment for Ship Island, Mississippi Sound, 
February 24, 1862, and on reaching there was unable to land with the 
troops, but not considered dangerously ill. He died off the Island, two 
days after the landing of the troops, separate from his comrades, and 
almost alone. His remains were sent home, and buried in the cemetery 
of his family, at Norfolk. His amiable character, and the circumstances 
of his death at the outset of his career, deeply affected the community 
with sorrow for his loss, and sympathy with his family in their affliction. 

Dr. John R. Gumming, appointed 2d Assistant-surgeon in place of. 
Assistant-surgeon Welch, was promoted to Surgeon, and was mustered 
out at Savannah, Ga., August 12, 1865. 

Private Solomon R. Hinsdale, Company A, appointed Quartermaster- 
Sergeant, promoted 2d Lieutenant; resigned August 9, 1862, on his 
appointment as Assistant-paymaster in the Navy, after which he served 
on the Mississippi Flotilla above Vicksburg, until prostrated by fever, 
and compelled to resign by impaired health. 

Sergeant Jacob T. Brown, Company C, killed at Fisher's Hill, Va., 
September 19, 1864. While giving water from his canteen to a- wounded 
lieutenant of an Iowa Regiment, on the battlefield, he was shot in the 
abdomen by a rebel sharpshooter, and died three bonis after. He was a 
model of physical manhood; a kind-hearted, unassuming man, and a con- 
sistent member of the Methodist Church, esteemed by his comrades as a 
conscientious Christian soldier. 

Private George. W. Eggleston, Company C, enlisted March 2, 1864, 
and mustered out al Savannah, August 12, 1865. 

Private Wm. II. Pool, Company C, enlisted February 24, 1864; dis- 
charged at New Haven, April 29, 1865. 
60 



474 ANNALS OF WTNC HESTER, 

Private John W. Vaughn, Company C, enlisted February 24, 1864, 
mustered out at Savannah, Ga., August 12, 1865. 

Second Lieutenant John W. Hurlbut, of Company G, resigned June 
6, 1862. 

A squad of ten Winchester men composed a part of the rank and file 
of Company 1), 11th Regiment Infantry, consisting of Charles L. 
Hosford, 1st Lieutenant; Corporal Levi L. Dayton, Privates Frank S. 
Pease, Lewis Dayton, Edward S. Fleming, Charles Hull, George 
Kinney, Daniel Lotherington, William H. Slack, and Albert M. Tuttle : 
and another squad of twelve men composed a part of Company E of the 
same regiment, consisting of First-sergeant Francis T. Brown, Sergeants 
Samuel B. Home, and Hiram C. Roberts ; Corporals William T. Page, 
Jr., and John K. Twiss ; Privates George Allen, William E. Cogswell, 
James Dudley, Erastus Eggleston and Rufus Eggleston (twins), Andrew 
M. Hurlbut, Leander Packard. 

These companies were mustered into service at Camp Lincoln, in 
Hartford, December 16, 1861. The regiment was assigned to Burn- 
side's Division, and fought its first battle at Newbern, N. C. March 14, 
1862. In July, 1862, it was attached to the Army of the Potomac, and 
was in the battle of South Mountain, Md., September 14, 1802, and in 
the battle of Antietam, September 17th following. It was on the picket 
line at Fredericksburg, Va., during the battle of the loth December, 1862, 
and was engaged in the defence of Suffolk, Va., during the siege from 
April 11 to May 3, 1863. In March, 1864, it returned from veteran 
furlough to Portsmouth, Va. ; marched to and encamped at Williams- 
burg, where it constituted the force nearest to Richmond. On the 9th of 
May it was in the battle of Swift's Creek; it fought in the battle of 
Drury's Bluff, and on the 3d of June was engaged in the charge at Cold 
Harbor, Va. It was afterward in active service before Petersburg, from 
June 15 to August 27, and continued to serve in Virginia until mustered 
out of service December 21, 1865. 

The following Winchester men of this regiment were killed or died in 
the service: — 

Private Lewis Dayton, Company D, killed at Sharpsburg (Antietam), 
Maryland. 

Private Wm. H. Slack, Company D, died of wounds (loss of an arm) 
received at Newbern, March 22, 1862. 

Private Albert M. Tuttle, Company D, killed at Cold Plarbor, Va., 
June 5, 1864. 

Sergeant Hiram C. Roberts, killed at Antietam, September 17, 1862. 

Corporal William T. Page, Jr., wounded at Antietam, September 17, 
and discharged for disability, October 25, 1862. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 475 

Corporal John K. Twiss, Company E, wounded and taken prisoner at 
Drury's Bluff; died of wounds at Richmond, May, 18G4. 

Private Win. F. Cogswell, Company E, killed at Antietam, September 
17, 1862. 

The promotions of Winchester men in this regiment were as follows : — 

Sergeant Francis T. Brown, Company E, promoted to captain. 

Sergeant Samuel B. Home, Company E, promoted to captain. 

Lieutenant Charles L. Hosford, promoted to captain, and in command 
as senior officer of the regiment at the termination of the battle of 
Antietam. 

On the rolls of the Thirteenth Regiment, organized at New Haven, 
Nov. 25, 1861, which participated in the engagements of Georgia Laud- 
ing. Irish Bend, Port Hudson, Cane River, and Mansara, in Louisiana, 
and Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek, in Virginia, the names 
of four Winchester men are found, viz : Second Assistant Surgeon Lucius 
W. Clark, Private George Losaw, of Co. D, who re-enlisted veteran, and 
was transferred to Co. B, from which he was mustered out April 25, 
1866; Private Charles Daniels, of Co. F, who was promoted Second 
Lieutenant, and resigned Jan. 8, 1864 ; and Private Edward Skinner, of 
Co. G., who re-enlisted veteran, was transferred to Co. D, and mustered 
out April 25, 1866. 

On the rolls of the Sixteenth Regiment is the name of Elliot Flem- 
ming, of Winchester, a private in Co. G, killed at Antietam, September 
16, 1862. 

The Nineteenth Infantry Regiment, afterwards reorganized as Second 
Regiment Heavy Artillery, was raised and organized as one of the 
five county regiments under the call of Lincoln, on the first of July, 1862, 
for three hundred thousand men. Its organization was initiated by the 
call of a mass county meeting at Litchfield on the 22d July, 18C2, which 
was largely attended, and rather adroitly managed. Without a moment's 
notice, a colonel was nominated on individual responsibility, the question 
taken without opportunity for debate, and the sheriff of the county de- 
clared unanimously nominated. An executive committee was also ap- 
pointed, consisting of four, three of them from Litchfield, who assumed 
the prerogative of nominating the other regimental officers. Not one of 
thuse was assigned to Winchester, the foremost town of the county in 
patriotic and efficient support of the war. 

Company E of this regiment was recruited in Winchester and towns 
adjoining, under the auspices of Jeffrey Skinner, late First Sergeant of 
Co. E, Second Regiment, who was appointed Captain, and rose by pro 
motion and desert to Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment. 



476 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The names of Winchester men in this company originally enlisted, 
amounting to sixty-two, are as follows; Capt. Jeffrey Skinner, 1st Lieut. 
Benj. F. Hosford, 2d Lieut. Chester D. Cleveland (of Winsted Society); 
Sergeants (Mow J. Smith, Salmon A. Granger, George White, Henry 
Skinner, Wm. S. Cooper, Stephen W. Sage, Mason Adkins, Frederick 
W. Daniels, Charles A. Reynolds ; Musicians Wilson B. White, Myron 
Ferris ; Wagoner Alfred G. Bliss ; Privates James R. Baldwin, Edward 
Beach, Patrick T. Birmingham, Almeron Bunnell, Edward F. Carring- 
ton, Philip D. Carroll, Frederick M. Cook, Alfred Comins, Robert A. 
Cutler, Henry A. Dayton, Adam I. N. Dilley, Edwin Downs, Lewis 
Downs, Bernard W. Doyle, Birdsey Gibbs, George N. Gibbs, James A. 
Green, Manwaring Green, William Hall, Luther W. Hart, Timothy A. 
Hart, Willard Hart, Geo. W. Huflbut, William S. Hurlbut, William R. 
Hubbard, Asa Humiston, Alonzo J. Hull, Henry C. Kent, Walter Martin, 
Herman P. Moore, Henry Overton, Joseph Pettit, Charles Henry Pine, 
Jerome Preston, Theodore Robbins, Edmund B. Sage, William Seymour, 
Lucius S. Skinner, John Smith, Prosper W. Smith, Philip Stabell, Dar- 
win S. Starks, John M. Teeter, Hubert A. Warner, Marcus A. White- 
head, Warren M. Wood, Julius Woodford, Wallace M. Woodruff. 

To these were added, by subsequent enlistment, the following Winchester 
men, who died in the service, or were honorably discharged or mu-tered 
out: Ernest A. Basney, Robert J. Balcroft, Samuel U. Brew, Henry 
( larke, Wells Clark, Benjamin G. Carman, David Durand, Jared P. 
Evarts, Mathew Fitzgerald, Patrick Keegan, Jacob Le Roy, Julius 
Rogers, Henry J. Reynolds, William H. Rowe, Edward Rugg, Edward 
E. Rowe, Philip Shelley, Henry Van Duesen, William Warner, Eiastus 
Woodworth, Henry Wenzell. 

The regiment left Litchfield for Washington, Sept. 15, 1862, and was 
stationed at Alexandria, Va., until November 23, 1863, when it was 
changed from an infantry to an artillery organization, and was designated 
" The Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery." It was engaged in garrison 
and police duty in the defences of Washington, south of the Potomac, 
until May 21, 1864, and was there filled up to 1800 men, the maximum 
of an artillery regiment. On the 22d of May, 1864, it was assigned to 
the Sixth Army Corps, and was from that time continually on the march 
until June 1, 18G4, when it received its first baptism by fin- in the mur- 
derous charge at Cold Harbor, Va. Tt afterwards participated in battles 
at Hatcher's Run, Va., Feb. 6, 1865, near Petersburg, Va , March 25 and 
April 2, and at Sailor's Creek, Va., April G, 18Co ; and was mustered out 
at Washington, D. C, August 18, 1865. 

Tl e promotions of Winchester men in this regiment were: 

('apt. Jeffrey Skinner to Lieut. Colonel. 
Lieut. Benjamin F. Hosford to Captain. 







/y r/ ' 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 477 

Sergt. Orlow J. Smith to Captain. 
Sergt. Salmon A. Granger to 2d Lieut. 
Sergt. Henry Skinner to Captain. 
Corp. Win. S. Cooper to 2d Lieut. 
Corp. Frederick W. Daniels to 2d Lieut. 
Corp. Charles A. Reynolds to 2d Lieut. 
Priv. Frederick M. Cook to 2d Lieut. 

The killed and mortally wounded were as follows : 

At Cold Harbor: Col. Elisha S. Kellogg, Sergt, Frederick W. Daniels, 
Musician Myron Ferris, Privates James R. Baldwin,* Alfred Comins, 
Lewis Downs, Birdsey Gibbs, James A. Green, Willard Hart, Alonzo J. 
Hull, Henry C. Kent.f Walter Martin, John M. Teeter, Jared P. Everts 
— 14 of Co. E; to these add Albert M. Tuttle, Co. I), Eleventh Regi- 
ment — 15. 

At Cedar Creek, Capt. Benj. F. Hosford, whose remains were brought 
home for interment. 

The following members of the regiment were wounded, but not mor- 
tally, in the service : 

At Cold Harbor: Privates Edward Beach, Philip D. Carrol, William 
Seymour, Marcus A. Whitehead, Ernest Basney, Samuel N. Brew, Jacob 
Le Roy, Julius Woodford, Henry Wenzell : 

At Cedar Creek: Major Jeffrey Skinner, Corp. Wm. S. Cooper. 

The following named men (privates) died in the service: 

Manwaring Green, Oct. 17, 1864, by railroad accident. 
Geo. W. Hurlbut, at Fort Worth, Va., March 27, 1863. 
Wm. S. Hurlbut, at Reg. Hospital, Oct. 25, 1863. 
Win. R. Hubbard, at Reg. Hospital, Aug. 4, 1864. 
Jerome Preston, at Reg. Hospital, Oct. 24, 1863. 

*Among the names on the foregoing list were James II. Baldwin and Henry C. 
Kent, who were in the assault at Cold Harbor, and were never seen afterwards. They 
were douhtless killed, and the remains buried during some of the following nights, by 
fatigue paities, who could carry no lights without drawing the fire of the rebel bat- 
tery in close vicinity of the battle-field. Private Baldwin was son of Mr. Ezra Bald- 
win of Wmsted; youthful and cheery — tenderly reared and religiously educated — be- 
loved of his parents and comrades. 

t Private Kent, son of an English cutler, at fifteen years old had never heen to 
school, and was destitute of the first, rudiments of education ; was the oldest of a. large 
family of children, and was kept at constant work in aid of their support. In this 
condition, he sought instruction from a benevolent lady during his winter evenings, 
and at the Sahbath school ; made rapid progress, mastered thoroughly the ordinary 
branches of education, and made a consistent profession of religion. At twenty, he 
bought his time of his father, at once enlisted, and died in his first battle a Christian 
soldier. 



478 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Darwin S. Starks, at Reg. Hospital, Aug. 23, 1863. 

Mathevv Fitzgerald, prisoner of war at Salisbury, N. C, Jan. 6, 18G5. 

Julius Rogers, at Reg. Hospital, Sept. 21, 1864. 

Edward E. Rowe, at Warren Station, Va., March 27, 1865. 

Julius Woodford, at Reg. Hospital, Jau. 30, 1865. 

The heroic Colonel Elisha S. Kellogg, who commanded the regiment at 
Cold Harbor, and there fell at the head of his men, though a resident of 
Derby on entering the service, subsequently removed his family to the 
society of Winsted, and his remains lie buried in the south cemetery under 
an appropriate monument. 

The final contribution of Winchester men for the service was made to 
the 28th regiment of nine months infantry, consisting of the major of the 
regiment, a captain, two lieutenants, and fifty-nine enlisted men. The 
regiment encamped at New Haven until November 18th, 1862, when it 
embarked for Pensacola, Florida, and there remained inactive until or- 
dered to join General Banks' army, and, after harassing marches in Louis- 
iana, was actively engaged in the assault on Port Hudson, June 14th, 
1863, sustaining a loss of iifty-nine killed, wounded, and missing. The 
regiment was mustered out of service at New Haven, Conn., August 28th, 
1863. 

The names of the Winchester men in the regiment were Wheelock T. 
Batcheller (late 1st lieutenant Company E, 2d three months Infantry), 
major; Lucien 15. Wheelock (late sergeant Company E, 2d three months 
Infantry), captain of Company F; Caleb P. Newman (late 1st sergeant 
Company B, 2d three months Infantry), 1st lieutenant; Jabez Alvord, 2d 
lieutenant; sergeants, George L. Andrews, Silas H. Mc Alpine, Milton T. 
Moore, and Henry L. Roberts; corporals, B. Frank Marsh, William A. 
Wadsworth, William Couch, Charles II. Moore, and Joseph H. C. Batch- 
elder; privates, Columbus C. Wright, Samuel C. Barber, George Bul- 
croft, Charles Baldwin. Edward Camsell, Henry P. Cook, Peter Coe, 
James Dugan, George N. Dewey, Henry Detert, Cornelius Dayton 
Charles Decker, Lucius Eggleston, George W. Elmore, Paul Forcier, 
Correll T. French, Edward Finn, Mat. M. Fitzgerald, Claudius W. S. 
Foster, John E. Garrett, Ward Grant, Samuel E. Griffin, William Hague, 
Charles N. Hollister, George Hoskin, Edward B. Kinney, Ralph Lina, 
Charles Maddra, Harvey Moore, George R. Moore, Silas Moore, Elbert 
Manchester, Thomas Morris, James E. Maddra, James McDermott, Wil- 
liam N. Pierce, George L. Pease, John Partridge, Elain E. Richardson, 
William II. Rowe, David R. Rankin, Stephen Scott, Frank S. Turner, 
Lyman Terrill, Cassius Watson, Howard S. Wheeler, William S. Wood- 
lord, Mark II. Wheeler, Henry C. White, and Michael Haggarty, of Com- 
pany H. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 479 

The following deaths occurred in the service: 
Private Columbus C. Wright died at Brashear City, La., May 23d, 1863. 
Private Samuel C. Barber died on the Mississippi. 
Private Charles Maddra died at Great Barrington, Mass., August 23d 

1863. 
Private Cassius Watson died at Brashear City, La., May 23d, 1863. 
Private Mark H. Wheeler, killed at Port Hudson, La., June 14th, 1863. 
Private Howard S. Wheeler died soon after reaching home, of disease 

contracted in the service. 
Private Michael Haggarty, of Company H, died of wounds received at 

Port Hudson, August 12th, 1863. 

The following Winchester men served as officers of the 1st Regiment 
Louisiana Colored Engineers: 

Willard S. Wetmore, 1st lieutenant and quartermaster. 
Edward Hewitt, 1st lieutenant. 

The following Winchester men served in the navy : 
Marcus Baird, ensign and acting sailing-master, Gulf Squadron. 
David W. Coe, executive officer's clerk, United States Frigate Sabine. 
Solomon R. Hinsdale, assistant pay-master on the Mississippi Flotilla, 

above Vicksburg. 
Henry Overton, transferred from 2d Heavy Artillery to the United Stales 

Navy. 
Ansel Rowley. 

We compile a connected list of soldiers of the town who died in the 
service, as follows : — 

Robert Arnold, Corporal Company I, 5th Infantry, killed Cedar Mountain, August 
9, 1862. 

Jacob T. Brown, Sergeant, Company C, 12th Infantry, killed Fisher's Hill, 
September 19, 1864. 

dames M. Burton, Private, Company E, 2d Infantry, died in hospital, New Haven, 
May 13, 1861. 

George Bellows, Jr , Private, Company E, 7th Infantry, mortally wounded Hamp- 
ton, Va., October 19, 1864. 

James R. Baldwin, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

Samuel C. Barber, Private, Company F, 2Sth Infantry, died of fever on Mississippi 
River. 

Albert Burdiek, Private, Company E, 7tb Infantry, died at Beaufort, S. C, July 
29, 1862. 

John Biederman, Private, Company E, 7th Infantry, died October 13, 1864. 

Alfred Comins, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed Cold Harbor, 
June I, 1864. 

Wolcott Cook, Private, Company K, 2d Heavy Artillery, died City Point, Va., 
June 16, 1865. 



480 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Win. F. Cogswell, Private, Company E, 11th Infantry, killed Sharpsburg, McL, 
September 17, 1862. 

Frederick W. Daniels, Sergeant, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed Cold 
Harbor, June 1, 1864. 

EobcrtDempsey, Lieutenant, Company E, 7th Infantry, killed Olustee, Fla, February 
20, 1865. 

Lewis Downs, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed Cold Harbor, June 
1, 1864. 

George C. Downs, Private, Company C, 13th Infantry, died on the Mississippi 
September 13, 1863. 

Lewis Dayton, Private, Company D, lltb Infantry, killed at Sharpsburg, Md., 
September 17, 1862. 

James Dolphin, Private, Company G, 14th R. I. Colored Artillery, died at Plaque- 
mine, La., August 5, 1864. 

Lucius B. Eggleston, Private, Company F, 28th Infantry, died at Memphis, Ten. 

Jared P.'Evarts, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

Myron Ferris, Musician, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

Elliott Fleming, Private, Company G, 16th Infantry, killed at Sharpsburg, Md , 
September 17, 1862. 

Mathew Fitzgerald, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died a prisoner at 
Salisbury, N. C. 

Birdsey Gibbs, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

James A. Green, Quartermaster-Sergeant, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, mor- 
tally wounded at Cold Harbor. 

Manwaring Green, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed by railroad 
accident, October 17, 1864. 

Charles Gilbert, Private, Company E, 7th Infantry, died of wounds in Charleston 
S. C, July 9, 1862. 

Benjamin F. Hosford, Captain, Company D, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cedar 
Creek, October 19, 1864. 

Willard Hart, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

George W. Hurlbut, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Alexandria, 
Vu, March 27, 1863. 

William S. Hurlbut, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Fort Worth, 
Va., October 25, 1863. 

William R. Hubbard, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Fort 
Worth, February 28, 1864. 

Asa Humiston, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, mortally wounded at 
Opequan, Va., September 19, 1864; died September 21, 1864. 

Alonzo .1. Hull, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

Lewis Bazzard, Private, Company G, 29th Colored Infantry, drowned at Plaque- 
mine, La , October 5, 1865. 

Michael Haggarty, Private, Company H, 28th Infantry, mortally wounded at Port 
Hudson, August 12, 1863. 

Davis Hart, Private, Company A, Massachusetts Infantry, killed at Fredericks- 
burg, Va. 

Henry ('. Kent, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS . 481 

Walter Martin, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

Charles E. Palmer, Captain, Company E, 7th Infantry, died at James' Island, 
S. C, July 7, 1862. 

Jerome Preston, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Alexandria' 
Va., October 24, 1863. 

Hiram Roberts, Private, Company E, 11th Infantry, killed at Sharpsburg, Md., 
September 17, 1862. 

Edward E. Rowe, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Petersburg, y^ 
Va., March, 1865. 

Julius Rogers, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Petersburg, Va., 
September 21, 1864. 

William II. Slack, Private, Company D, 11th Infantry, mortally wounded at 
Newbern, N. C, March 22, 1862. 

Darwin S. Starks, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Alexandria, 
Va., August 23, 1863. 

John M. Teeter, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 1, 1864. 

Albert |M. Tuttle, Private, Company D, 11th Infantry, killed at Cold Harbor, 
June 3, 1864. 

John K. Twiss, Sergeant, Company E, 11th Infantry, died at Richmond, Va., 
May 1, 1864. 

Julius Thorne, Private, Company M, 1st Regiment of Cavalry, died at New Haven, 
December 14, 1864. 

John B. Welch, Assistant-Surgeon, 12th Infantry, died at Ship Island, February 
13, 1862. 

Howard S. Wheeler, Private, Company F, 28th Infantry, died of scurvy at home 
after muster out. 

Mark II. Wheeler, Private, Company F, 28th Infantry, killed at Port Hudson, La., 
June 14, 1863. 

Julius Woodford, Private, Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Alexandria, 
Va., January 30, 1864. 

William S. Watson, Private, Company K, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at Alexandria, 
Va., August 28, 1863. 

Columbus C. Wright, Wagoner, Company F, 28th Infantry, died at Brashear City, 
La., May 23, 1863. 

( lassius Watson, Private, Company' F, 28th Infantry, died at Brashear City, La., 
May 23, 1863. 

The enlistments by families is a notable feature of the volunteer force 
of this town. We find fourteen instances of two brothers in the service, 
nine instances of three members of the same family, two of four, and one 
of six connected in the relation of father, stepfather, sons and stepsons. 
We note the instances embracing three or more members of one family : — 

I. Sons of Caleb F. Daniels— 

1. Frederick W., private Company D, 2d Infantry, and ser- 

geant Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, killed at Cold 
Harbor, Va. 

2. George, private Company E, 7th Infantry. 
61 



482 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

3. Charles, private Company G, 13th Infantry, promoted t 
2d Lieutenant. 

II. Sons of Isaac Downs — 

1. Edwin E., private Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery; dis- 

charged for disability. 

2. Lewis, private Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery ; killed at 

Cold Harbor, Va. 

3. George C, private Company C, 13th Infantry ; died of 

swamp fever. 

III. Sons of Rufus M. Eggleston — 

1. Gustavus, private Company B, 1st squadron cavalry. 

2. Erastus, | twins, privates Company E, 11th Infantry ; dis- 

3. Rufus, f charged for disability. 

4. Lucius, private Company H, 28th Infantry ; died of swamp 

fever on Mississippi. 

IV. Sons of Arad Hosford — 

1. Charles L., sergeant Company E, 2d Infantry, captain Com- 

pany D, 11th Infantry. 

2. Benjamin F., private Company E, captain 2d Heavy Artil- 

lery, killed at Cedar Creek. 

3. William A., 1st lieutenant Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 

V. Sons of Sylvester Hurlbut — 

1. George W., private Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died 

at Alexandria, Va. 

2. William S., private company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, died at 

Fort Worth, Va. 

3. Andrew M., private Company E, 11th Infantry, re-enlisted 

a veteran. 

VI. Sons of Anthony Home — 

1. Samuel B., private Company C, 2d Infantry, captain Com- 

pany F, 11th Infantry, provost-marshal 18lh Army Corps. 

2. Robert, drummer Company F, 11th Infantry, wounded at 

Petersburg, Va. 

3. John J., private Company F, 15th N. Y. Heavy Artillery. 

VII. Sons of Newton Hart— 

1. Davis, private Company A, 10th Massachusetts Infantry, 

killed at Spotsylvania, Va. 

2. Geo. L., private Company A, 10th Massachusetts Infantry. 

3. Timothy A., sergeant Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 483 

VIII. Sons of Sylvanus Pease — 

1. Byron W., assistant surgeon United States Colored Engin- 

eers, La. 

2. Frank S., musician Company D, 11th Infantry. 

3. Robert, musician Company I, 5th Infantry. 

4. James A., private Company E, 7th Infantry. 

IX. William H. Rowe, (father,) musician 1st Heavy Artillery, private 
Company F, 28th Infantry. 

1. Edward E., (son,) private Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, 

died in the service. 

2. Charles H., (son,) private Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery. 

X. Sons of Elias Rowley — 

1. Henry II., private Company E, 7th Infantry. 

2. John G., private Company E, 7th Infantry. 

3. Warren, private, Cavalry. 

4. Ansel, private, Navy. 

XI. Sons of John Skinner — 

1. Jeffrey, 1st sergeant Company E, 2d Infantry, captain, major, 

and lieutenant-colonel, 2d Heavy Artillery. 

2. Henry, sergeant Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, lieutenant 

Companies E and G, captain Company B, same regiment. 

3. Edward, corporal Company G, loth Infantry. 

We note, in closing this list, a mixed family, all of them residents of 
this town, before, during, or immediately after the war. Francis H. Kin- 
ney was father of two sons, and Margaret, his second wife, was mother, 
by a former husband, (Miller,) of three sons, all of whom served in dif- 
ferent regiments, as follows: 

1. Francis H. Kinney, (father,) private Company II, 15th Infantry; 
discharged for disability. 

2. Horace Kinney, (son,) private Company E, 11th Infantry, and 
veteran. 

3. George Kinney, (son,) private Company D, 11th Infantry, trans 
ferred to 20th United States Cavalry. 

4. David Miller, (step-son,) color-bearer, Company D, 1st Infantry, 
corporal Company E, 2d Heavy Artillery, wounded at Cold Harbor. 

5. John B. Miller, (step-son,) private Company E., 1 lth Infantry; vet- 
eran; promoted to lieutenant; wounded at Cold Harbor, Va. 

6. Frank Miller, (stepson,) private Company A, 8th Infantry; wounded 
at Cold Harbor. 

The three Millers belonged to three distinct regiments, all present at 
Cold Harbor; were all wounded successively on the 1st, 2d, and 3d days 



484 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

of June, 1864, and were successively brought to the hospital at Alexan- 
dria ou the 5th, 6th, and 7th days of the same month. 

Frank, the youngest of the three Millers, was fourteen years old when 
he enlisted. He was wounded at Cold Harbor by a rifle ball in the shoul- 
der. Chloroform was twice administered to him preparatory to amputa- 
tion of his arm at the shoulder joint, but it was deferred, through fear of a 
fatal result. He lived to become a strong, hearty man. 

From the foregoing data we gather, as the effective force of Winchester 
men, regularly mustered and engaged in the military and naval service, 
and honorably discharged therefrom, three hundred and fifty-two efficient 
men, thirty-four of whom re-enlisted for second terms of service, early in 
the war, and twelve or more re-enlisted as veterans, after three years of 
service. 

To these are to be added not less than seventy-five substitutes, pur- 
chased by the town authorities in the bounty -jumping shambles, who never 
resided in the town, and whose names it would be superfluous to give. 
Of this class full forty deserted — most of them immediately after receiv- 
ing their bounty; twenty were unassigned or not taken up on the rolls; 
and a small number were killed, or honorably discharged at the end of 
their terms of service, and are named among the effective men. 

SUMMARY. 

Whole number of effective men, - 352 

Men enlisting and serving second terms, - - 46 

Deserters, bounty -jumpers, and "dead beats," - 75 



473 



Probably no army in the world's history was made up of better mate- 
rial in the aggregate (Cromwell's Ironsides excepted) than the volunteer 
force of the United States in the War of the Rebellion ; hetter in physi- 
cal power, moral training, intelligence and social standing, hut unused, at 
the outset, to discipline and subordination. There was enough of religious 
zeal and patriotic ardor to call into the field thoughtful and high-princi- 
pled men, rather than those of a debased order. East and West this ele- 
ment predominated. In the West the volunteers were mostly farmers ; 
in the East they were more largely intelligent mechanics, inferior in bone 
and sinew, but excelling in elasticity and endurance. Our men, to a large 
extent, were made up of the latter class, and of young men tenderly 
reared, and apparently unfitted to endure hardship and privation ; yet an 
examination of the foregoing statistics will show that far the largest pro- 
portion of discharges for disability and deaths by disease occurred among 
the agricultural class. 

Among the evil forebodings at the beginning of the conflict, none seemed 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 485 

better warranted than that a whole generation of young men would be 
demoralized by the debaucheries of army life. Experience of other wars 
had taught this lesson; but it signally failed in its application to the 
younger or older volunteers of this town. It is very doubtful whether, 
among our soldier boys, an instance can be found where a young man, 
entering the service with good moral and temperate habits, has returned 
to civil life with those habits essentially deteriorated. Almost without 
exception, they at once resumed their accustomed occupations in the 
factory, on the farm, and at the counter, or embarked in new fields of en- 
terprise suggested by their enlarged experience and observation. 

Another foreboding of the early days of the war took the form of as- 
surance that every branch of manufacturing and mercantile business was 
to be prostrated, that farms would be uncultivated, that the rich would 
become poor, and that the poor must fight or starve. An all-wise Provi- 
dence has averted these evils. Our citizens in nearly every branch of 
industry and business have been prospered during the ten years ending in 
1871, as in no earlier decade; and this prosperity has resulted from no 
direct government patronage in the way of army contracts or war specu- 
lations. 

The pecuniary outlay of the town in bounties, expenses of filling 
quotas and aid of soldiers' families, as appears by the accounts of the 
selectmen, was as follows : 

1861. Paid volunteers and their families, - $ 851.63 

1862. " expenses of filling quotas, - - - 492.59 
" bounties on enlistments, ... 6,500.00 

1863. " bounties and expenses of filling quotas, - - 16,110.00 

1864. " " " " - 16,481.05 

1865. " " " «... 14,233.45 

1866. " " " " 300.00 
1S67. " " " "... 8.53 



$54,977.25 

The individual contributions, as far as ascertained, were as follows: 
Balance of cash raised in 1861 by citizens for purchase of ma- 
terials for soldiers' uniforms, and for support of their families, 

and not refunded by the state, - - - - - $ 076.14 

Cash paid by individuals for filling quota in 1864, - - 664.42 

Bounties of $10 eaeh to 100 men by Elliot Beardsley, - - 1,000.00 

Bounties paid by other citizens (estimated), - - 2,000.00 

$4,340.56 

A large amount of hospital stores, clothing, bedding, provisions, and 
casli were furnished by female societies, otdy a portion of which can be 
ascertained, by reason of the imperfect records made of the same. We 
compile from such records and memoranda as have been preserved, the 
following items : 



486 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

Making- up 103 uniforms from materials paid for by the state, - $ 412.00 

" 112 shirts (cloth furnished), - - - 84.00 

200 linen havelocks, ------ 100.00 

Sent to Christian Commission, 16 boxes and barrels of clothing, 

bedding and hospital stores, valued at - - 688.18 

Cash, proceeds of tableaux exhibition, - 252.50 

To Sanitary Commission, hospital articles and stores, - 476.39 
To Mrs. Harris, Supt. of Hospitals, Phila., hospital articles and 

stores, -------- 370.71 

To Freedmen's and Refugee Aid Societies, - - - 1550.50 

To Soldiers' Aid Society, 31.70 

To Soldiers in Connecticut Regiments, 96 barrels and 15 boxes 

vegetables, provisions, and stores, ■- - - - 635.00 

$4,600.98 

The. above articles, estimated below their value, and comprising an 
infinite variety of articles, were mainly furnished by one of our two 
female organizations. Of the number and value of articles supplied by 
the other society, we have obtained no statement, but may safely estimate 
them at $2/>81.21 ; and so estimating them, we have the following sum- 
mary of town expense. 

Town expenses, - - - $48,977.25 

Cash items by citizens of the town, - - - 4,340.56 
Clothing, beddingj hospital stores, provisions and cash from 

West Winsted Soldiers' Aid Society, - - - 4,600.98 
Similar articles furnished by other societies and individuals 

(estimated), - .... - 2,081.21 

Grand Total, ... - $60,000.00 

The contributions furnished by the female society above named, are 
specified with great particularity and precision, and are largely made up 
of the most valuable and indispensable articles of clothing and bedding, 
the cost of materials worked up and paid for in cash, making a large part 
of their estimated value. 

One item of hospital stores, nowhere enumerated, was the product of 
ninety-five bushels of blackberries, which were gathered in one day, 
mostly by females, on a proposition of Gail Borden, Esq., that he would 
convert into jam all the blackberries so gathered in one day, at the 
condensed milk factory owned in part by him, the sugar and cans being 
paid for. 

Note. — The compiler has learned, since this chapter went to press, that our worthy 
neighbor, Caleb 1'. Newman, First Sergeant of Company B, 2d Infantry, and 1st 
Lieutenant of Company F, 28th Infantry, had signed an enlistment paper before the 
meeting at which Captain Home enrolled his name. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

business operations as affected by the rebellion— building operations- 
increase of taxable property— connecticut western railroad- 
temperance reform and decadence— masonic societies. 

1861 to 1872. 

Amid the enthusiasm and firm resolve of the loyal masses of the 
North, at the outbreak of the rebellion, there was among intelligent men 
a consciousness of a mighty struggle impending, and a belief that it 
would be attended with ruin to all our business interests. The merchant 
encouraged his clerks to volunteer, by assurances that their places 
should be kept open for their occupancy on their return from military 
service, and by pecuniary bounties. The manufacturers held out like 
inducements to their operatives. 

The struggle was mightier and longer than was apprehended ; but 
business interests were only partially affected or deranged. In our com- 
munity the only business entirely suspended was the manufacture of 
planters' hoes for the southern market. The business employed a large 
number of men, who were represented in most of the battle fields of the 
Atlantic States.* Other manufacturing establishments for a time 
reduced their business, but soon found it enlarged in amount and profit. 
The evil day of collapse and ruin apprehended at the beginning of the 
war was not realized, but was foreboded at its end. At the end of seven 
years, after the return of peace — thanks to the wise management of the 
financial affairs of the nation — no business revulsion has occurred. 
Nearly four hundred millions of national debt — to say nothing of state 
and town debts approaching an equal amount— have been paid off, and 
the business affairs of the country were seldom more prosperous. Very 
few new dwellings or factories were erected during that period, but 
nearly all the dwellings previously built with funds borrowed from 
savings and building associations, and afterwards sold to speculating 
capitalists, found purchasers at largely advanced prices, and came into 
the hands of substantial resident owners. Population rapidly increased 

* We have, in the preceding chapter, noticed six members of one. family who 
served in various regiments, all of whom — with perhaps one exception — had been 
employed in this branch of business. 



488 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

from year to year, though the increase has hardly been noticeable by 
reason of the crowding to a large extent of two or more families in 
buildings previously occupied by only one. 

Owing to the great increase of taxation, falling more largely on real 
estate than on personal property on the one hand, and on the other 
hand the inducements held out to investors by ten per cent, mortgages? 
railroad bonds and stocks, but few tenant houses have been erected in 
the borough since 1860 by capitalist or manufacturer. 

During the twelve years since 1860, the following public buildings, 
factory buildings, and stores have been erected. 

The graded school building in west district was built in 1867, at a cost 
of $19,400. 

Number of scholars on the roll November, 1872, - - 310 

Number of teachers, __.-_-- 5 

Aggregate amount of salaries, - $4,600 

The graded school building in the east section was built in 1870, at a 
cost of $15,000. 

Number of scholars enrolled November, 1872, - - 160 

Number of teachers, - 4 

Aggregate amount of salaries, - $2,302 

The monastery building of St. Francis' Literai'y and Theological 
Seminary was erected in 1867. Connected with the seminary is a parish 
school, with from fifty to seventy-five scholars, under charge of Sisters of 
the third Order of St. Francis; and also the Academy of St. Margaret of 
Cortona, for tuition of young ladies in the higher branches. 

The borough building and lock-up was erected in 1861. 

The Woodford four-story brick block, containing a store, banking 
office, and masonic hall, was finished in 1861. 

Dudley's three-story brick block, containing four store tenements, was 
erected in 1861. 

Moore's south three-story wooden block, containing fish market, smith 
shop, and stove warehouse, was erected in 1866. 

Moore's north three story wooden block, containing clothing store and 
feed store, erected 1869. 

Phelps' three-story wooden block, containing millinery and drug stores, 
erected in 1868. 

Gilman & Hallett's three-story wooden block, containing two store 
tenements, erected in 1872. 

Hicks' three-story Hotel, corner of Main and Park streets, erected in 
1870 on the site of the old Stevens' House. 

Gilbert Clock Company's brick factory on north side of Wallen street, 
built on site of factory burned in 1871, erected in 1871. 

Gilbert Clock Co.'s brick factory, south of Wallen street, erected in 1872. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 489 

Strong Manufacturing Company's building erected in 1866. 

Gilman Carriage Company's building erected in 1866. 

The four- story brick block, north of the Beardsley House, on Main 
street, containing two store tenements and a banking office, erected by 
the Beardsley family in 1872. 

The Music Hall building, erected in 1872 by a joint-stock company, 
a brick and iron structure, fronting fifty-six feet on Main and 126 feet 
ou Elm street, is three stories above the basement floor, and surmounted 
by a Mansard roof, contains a public hall 54 by 92 i'eet, and three store 
tenements on the first floor. Adjoining it on the east, and in the same 
style and material, is a block of 48 feet front, containing a banking office 
and a store tenement, erected by John G. Wetmore. 

The Connecticut Western Railroad Depot, on Lake street, was erected 
in 1872, in part by funds appropriated by the railroad company, and in 
part by contributions of George Dudley and other citizens. 

The dwelling houses erected by resident owners, though limited in 
number, have been of a superior order in style, architectural proportions, 
and conveniences. Among them we note the following, with their loca- 
tions and date of erection : — 

Dwelling of Thomas M. Clarke, on Elm street, in 1864. 

" John G. Wetmore, on Hinsdale street, in 1867. 

" James R. Alvord, on Meadow street, in 1867. 

" David Strong, on Walnut street, in 1869. 

" E. R. Beardsley (built by Seth L. Wilder, deceased), on 

Main street, in 1862. 

" George F. Barton, on Prospect street, in 1869. 

" Edward Clarke, on Hinsdale street, in 1870. 

" James G. Woodruff, on North Main street, in 1870. 

William C Phelps, on High street, in 1870. 

" T. M. V. Doughty, on Union street, in 1862. 

" William McAlpine, on Hinsdale street, in 1871. 

" James Cone, " " in 1872. 

" Wm. L. Camp, « " in 1872. 

" F. L. Pond, « " in 1872. 

« Wm. C. Welch, on Main street, in 1871. 

" Julius Gregory, Beach street, in 1870. 

" Patrick Reidy, Elm street, 1870. 

" Charles J. York, " 1871. 

" Jos. W. Parsons, Beach street, 1871. 

" Charles L. Norton, Elm street, 1871. 

62 



490 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



We compile from the lists of 1861 and 1871 abstracts of taxable prop- 
erty in Winsted, and also whole amount of assessments of the whole 
town : — 







1861. 




1871. 


Description of Property. 










No. 


Valuation. 


No. 


Valuation. 


Dwelling houses, - - - 


502 


$514,450 


555 


770,225 


Acres of land, - 


8,800 


186,884 




217,426 


Factories, mills, and stores, 


77 


201,500 


93 


279,150 


Horses, 


219 


17,780 


285 


33,745 


Neat catttle, 


758 


14,847 


872 


19,941 


Sheep and swine, 




259 




289 


Carriages, &c, .... 




9,201 




23,150 


Farming utensils, 








125 


Clocks and watches, 




6,354 




14,281 


Musical instruments, - 




6,020 




13,875 


Extra furniture, ... - 




5,550 




14,935 


Bank stocks, .... 




204,344 




186,556 


State stocks, 








2,100 


Railroad bonds, ... - 




21,188 




328,585 


Invested in merchandize, - 




90,350 




140,415 


" manufacturing, - 




113,900 




191,200 


" steamboats, - 








9,500 


Money at interest, 




79,443 




216,767 


Money on hand, .... 




3,428 




16,150 


Taxable property, 




270 




8,075 




$1,475,768 


$2,486,490 



We omit the taxable polls on account of changes in valuation from 
time to time, and the variation of numbers exempted for various 
reasons. 

The whole number of unexempt polls in 1861 was, - - 645 
While in 1871 the number was reduced to - - - - 451 



In 1840 the taxable property of the whole town was, $ 477,865 

In 1851 " " " 1,023,875 

In 1861 " " " 1,750,921 

In 1871 " " " 2,759,943 

Polls not included. 

The population of the town, at the periods specified, was as follows : — 

By census of 1756, 24 

" « 1774, . .... - 339 

" 1781, - - - - - - 688 

" 1800, 1,368 

" 1810, 1,466 

« " 1820, 1,601 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 491 

By census of 1830, ------ 1,766 

« 1840, 1,667 

" " 1850, 2,179 

« 1860, 3,550 

" « 1870, 4,102 

After the opening of the Naugatuck Railroad in 1850, the necessity of 
a railroad communication eastward to the Connecticut River, and west- 
ward to the Hudson, became more and more apparent, but until recently 
seemed impracticable, by reason of the high grades and circuitous lines 
required in running roads easterly and westerly over the mountain 
ranges between the Hudson and Connecticut rivers. 

The steady growth of Collinsville, New Hartford, and Winsted, and 
the great enlargement of the iron interests of Salisbury and Canaan, 
stimulated the desire to overcome difficulties in the way of the enterprise, 
which had seemed to the communities interested to be insuperable. 

Public attention was first called to the practicability of the enterprise 
by E. T. Butler, Esq., of Norfolk, in 1865, and mainly through his instru- 
mentality, experimental surveys were made during that year ; and in 
1866 a charter was granted to "The Connecticut Western Railroad 
Company," with power to construct a road from Collinsville, Conn., to 
the Massachusetts state line on the border of North Canaan. Strenuous 
efforts were made by Mr. Butler and others to interest capitalists in the 
scheme. The Boston and Erie Railroad Company were vainly solicited 
to make the route a part of their line. Hartford and Springfield capital- 
ists were appealed to in vain. The Canal Railroad Company would have 
nothing to do with it. The Harlem, Housatonic, and Naugatuck Com- 
panies, with which it was to form connections, gave it a cold shoulder. 

At this nearly hopeless stage of the enterprise, the Dutchess and 
Columbia Railroad Company, under the auspices of George H. Brown, 
Esq., of Washington Valley, N. Y., had completed their road from Fish- 
kill, on the Hudson, opposite Newburg, to near Pine Plains in Dutchess 
County, N. Y., and were seeking an eastern connection. The existence 
of the Connecticut Western Charter was made known to Mr. Brown, 
who, with characteristic energy, at once embarked with Mr. Butler and 
others in the enterprise. A new charter was obtained from the Legisla- 
ture of 1868, granting power to extend the road from the City of 
Hartford to Collinsville; thence to follow the line of the charter of 1866 
through New Hartford, Winsted, and Norfolk ; and thence to diverge 
westerly through North Canaan and Salisbury, in the direction of 
Millerton, on the Harlem Railroad, so as to connect with the Dutchess 
and Columbia Railroad at the state line. The charter authorized towns 
along the line of the road, in their corporate capacity, to subscribe and 



Salisbury, by town, 


$50,000 


Canaan, " 


34,000 


Norfolk, 


41,500 


Canton, " 


40,000 


Simsbury, " 


50,000 


Bloomfiekl, " 


42,300 


Hartford, 


750,000 


Add Winchester, " 


116,000 



492 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

pay for stock in the road to an amount not exceeding five per cent, of 
their grand lists last made up, on being empowered so to do by a two- 
third vote of the inhabitants of such towns at meetings duly called and 
notified for that purpose. 

The town of Winchester, on the 22d of August, 1868, by a ballot 
of 366 to 66, voted a subscription of five per cent, on its list, amounting 
to $116,000, to the stock of the company, and individual citizens of the 
town made further subscriptions to the amount of $74,900. Winchester 
was the first town on the line to vote on this test question, the result of 
which was to determine whether the road should be carried through. 
Subscriptions of other towns along the line were soon afterwards voted 
as follows : — 

By citizens, $103,090* 
" 1 6,000 

" 10,800 

" 0,000 

" 20,100 

" 25,900 

64,000 
" 74,900 

The surveys, estimates, and location of the road were completed in 
1870, and the whole line was put under contract immediately afterward. 
The first passenger train passed over the road from Hartford to Miller- 
ton, N. Y., on the 21st December, 1871, and returned the same day, and 
since then the communication has been uninterrupted. Its connections 
with other roads along its line, and at its termini, will make it a trunk 
line of equal importance with the other east and west roads of New 
England. Its connections with roads already completed, are with three 
roads at Hartford, with the Canal Road at Simsbury, its branch at 
Collinsville, the Naugatuck at Winsted, the Housatonic at Canaan, the 
Pokeepsie and Eastern, and the Dutchess & Columbia at state line, and 
the Harlem at Millerton. Other connections are shortly to be completed 
with the Connecticut River and Boston & Albany roads at Springfield, 
the Collinsville & New Britain branch at Collinsville, the Farmington 
River Road from Lee to New Hartford, or Winsted, and the road from 
Rhinebeck on the Hudson to the state line, the three latter now in process 
of construction. 

With these new . avenues of intercourse with every portion of New 
England, and especially with direct access to the coal fields of Pennsyl- 
vania, and the wheat and lumber regions of the great West, a rapid 

* This amount of private subscriptions is supposed to include a subscription of 
$50,000 by Mr. Brown of the Dutchess and Columbia Railroad. 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 493 

growth in the population and wealth of Wiusted is confidently 
anticipated. 

In the regular course of our annals, the great temperance movement, 
which has contributed largely to the prosperity and moral improvement 
of our community, and which has been largely promoted by our citizens, 
has found no place. 

As early as 1825 the Temperance Reform, by organized associations, 
began to be agitated in this vicinity. Able lecturers from time to time 
appeared among us, setting forth the evils of intemperate drinking, its 
almost universal prevalence, and the remedy to be found in total absti- 
nence from spirituous liquors, and associated action in enlightening the 
public mind, and aiding the intemperate in their endeavors to abandon 
their evil habits. It was then thought that abstinence from distilled 
liquors would remove the giant evil of the country, and the original 
societies were organized on a pledge thus limited. 

We have before us the records of the Winsted Temperance Society, 
organized August 16, 1829, as an auxiliary of the Litchfield County 
Society, and based on the following pledge : — 

" The members of this society, believing that the use of intoxicating 
liquors for persons in health is not only unnecessary but hurtful, and that 
the practice is the cause of forming intemperate appetites and habits, and 
that while it continues the evils of intemperance can never be prevented, 
do therefore agree that we will abstain from the use of distilled spirits, 
except as medicines in case of bodily hurt or sickness ; that we will not 
allow the use of it in our families, nor provide it for the entertainment of 
our friends or persons in our employ, and that in all suitable ways we 
will discountenance the use of it in the community." 

This and other societies at that period formed in nearly every town in 
the county and state, was organized for active work, and fulfilled its 
mission. The county society, composed of delegates froni its auxiliaries, 
assembled monthly with some one of these, received reports of the state 
of the work in all the towns, consulted on measures promotive of the 
cause, and heard addresses from its ablest advocates. The subordinate 
societies were stimulated to activity by reports from their delegates, and 
guided in their course of action by the combined wisdom and experience 
of the parent society. 

For several years the county meetings were crowded by delegates and 
friends of the cause. The work went bravely on. The auxiliary socie- 
ties at every meeting called for signers of the pledge, and appointed 
frequent committees to go from house to house circulating temperance 
tracts, and soliciting new recruits. Lecturing agents were employed to 
address the children in the school districts, and enroll them in temperance 
bands. 



494 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The original members of the Winsted Society were: Rev. James 
Beach, Solomon Rockwell, Asaph Pease, Willard Holmes, Salmon Burr, 
Austin Crane, Norman Palmer, William S. Holabird, Anson Cook, James 
H. Alvord, Lyman Case, Sidney Munson, Horace E. Rockwell, Erastus 
Woodford, Josiah Smith, Leumas H. Pease, and Eleazer Andrews. Ac- 
cessions of members were rapidly made from month to month, until, in 
1836, there were enrolled 297 males and 268 females. At the outset, it 
was a mooted question whether females had any temperance rights the 
lords of the creation were bound to recognize by admitting them to mem- 
bership in the society. The question was speedily decided affirmatively, 
and their efficient co-operation in the cause was secured. 

The active laborers in the temperance field at this day can but faintly 
realize the obstacles encountered, and the prejudices overcome by the 
pioneers of this movement. At the outset, the Methodist body, which 
eventually furnished many of the noblest and most persistent workers in 
the common cause, conceived that their churches were strict temperance 
bodies, competent to carry on the cause by enforcement of their discipline. 
This exclusiveness, however, was short-lived, and was followed by a hearty 
co-operation of the membership in the general work. There were also 
religionists of diverse persuasions who prated and canted about the sin of 
rejecting any good creature of God, and of covenanting with associates 
without the pale of the church. This class of opposers were in high favor 
with the drinking masses, who felt assured of their competency to take 
care of themselves, and who scorned to sign away their own liberty. 

Nevertheless, the doctrine of abstinence gained ground rapidly, and to 
short-sighted observers seemed to promise a speedy renovation of society. 
Distilling of spirits by Christian men was generally abandoned. Respect- 
able traders and taverners ceased to sell the villainous compounds. Farmers 
and manufacturers, to a large extent, ceased furnishing them to their work- 
men. But a radical defect in the pledge of abstinence soon became appa- 
rent. It embraced only distilled spirits in its prohibition ; and by impli- 
cation sanctioned the use of fermented drinks, as harmless. The conse- 
quence was, that habitual and intemperate drinkers, the classes to be ar- 
rested in their downward course, naturally and almost inevitably resorted 
to fermented drinks to satisfy and perpetuate their craving appetites. The 
poor inebriate substituted hard cider for cider brandy, and ale for whisky ; 
while the richer one found in highly-drugged wine a solace for abstinence 
from cogniac brandy. It was not pleasant nor edifying to hear half-boozy 
guzzlers of wine, ale, and cider, expatiating on the benefits of abstinence 
from rot-gut in a distilled form. It sometimes seemed better that they 
should speedily terminate their drunken career by use of the concentrated 
poisons than to dishonor a noble cause by their advocacy and example. 

Nevertheless, very many who signed the limited pledge, carried out the 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 495 

principles on which it was based by abstaining from every form cf alcoholic 
drinks ; and thus the original organization was productive of incalculable 
good. 

The transition from the first to the second stage of temperance reform 
was gradual in the Winsted Society. Earnest and conscienfious members, 
from time to time, affixed the letters T. T. A. to their names, subscribed 
to the original pledge, thereby binding themselves to total abstinence from 
all intoxicating drinks. A new life and activity became apparent as these 
cabalistic letters were appended to the names of members. By the close 
of 1836, every active member of the society had become a radical Tee 
Totaller, while many partially reformed members had fallen by the way 
side and many other once zealous members had become neutral or hostile 
to the cause. 

At or near this period the original society wa-i re-organized ; or rather, 
it was left in the hands of the abstinents from ardent spirits only, and 
forthwith died of inanition; and a new society was organized under the 
name of " The Winsted Total Abstinence Society." Every live member 
of the old organization who had ?uper-added to his name the total, or 
" tee-total," abstinence initials, joined the new society. Its members were 
active and earnest, and accessions of new members were made at every 
monthly meeting. Nearly every business man, and every trader in the 
town became an active member of the society, or an outspoken advocate 
of its principles. Every store-keeper in town ceased to buy or sell intox- 
icating liquors. We had few, if any, saloons in those days, and no apoth- 
ecaries. Taverners, on applying for liquor licenses, were, steadfastly re- 
fused by the civil authorities. Respectable farmers were adiamed to bring 
into the village their barrels of cider for sale to the topers. Not a few 
of them cut down their ungrafted apple trees, and many others fed their 
apples to their stock. The cider mills rotted down or were torn down, 
and the buildings were appropriated to better uses. We speak advisedly 
when we say that public opinion and public action had reached this stage 
in our community years before the advent of the great Washingtonian 
temperance movement. 

Our limits permit only a brief allusion to the first legislative acts giving 
to towns the right to prohibit the sale of liquors within their borders. 
Winchester first voted for prohibition ; a second meeting was called and 
voted for licensing the traffic; a third meeting, and a fourth, voted as the 
first had done, and the contest was abandoned. In these meetings, 
the principles of Total Abstinence were thoroughly ventilated in the 
presence of men who had never attended a temperance meeting. Argu- 
ments long before worn trite and threadbare in temperance meetings, 
found a lodgment in the consciences of many who had never before heard 
them. The law which had given occasion for these municipal debating so- 



496 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

cieties was repealed by an adverse legislature, but the results were abiding. 
The moral suasion movement went onward. 

In 1840 or 1841, the Washingtonian movement was initiated by an 
association of intemperate mechanics in Baltimore, who banded together 
for mutual aid in freeing themselves from the slavery of intemperance, by 
a pledge of abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. Large numbers of 
intempei*ate men flocked to their standard. Their delegates went abroad 
and organized associate bands in many of the neighboring cities. John 
Hawkins, the ablest of the pioneers in this movement, came to Hartford 
during the legislative session in 1842. His public addresses made a pro- 
found impression on the members of the legislature and every class of 
citizens. A "Washingtonian society, embracing a large portion of the 
intemperate men of Hartford, was at once formed. Every member was 
an apostle of faith and good works in advancing the cause. 

Delegates from this society came to Winsted in the summer of 1842, 
and were cordially received. They related their personal experiences, 
their emancipation from the slavery of intemperate drinking, their im 
proved condition, the happiness and comfort of their families, and their 
own conscious manhood. They were listened to bj' crowded and thought- 
ful audiences ; but they departed without obtaining a signature to the new 
pledge. On the day after their departure, however, the fruits of their 
labor of love became manifest. Some twelve to fifteen men, most of 
them habitual drinkers, who had ever before kept aloof from the tem- 
perance movement, came in a body to the Secretary of the Total Absti- 
nence Society and enrolled their names on the pledge. Others speedily 
followed their example ; and in ten days nearly every habitual drinker in 
the place had signed the pledge. 

The new converts soon embodied themselves in a distinctive Washing- 
tonian Society, which was also joined largely by members of the old 
Total Abstinence Society, which thereafter became dormant, leaving the 
temperance work in the hands of the more popular and zealous 
organization. 

The principle of total abstinence, after an agitation of near fifteen 
years, had now become an article of faith and practice in this community. 
Its positions were unassailed and unassailable. The old west village 
tavern, the last stronghold of the rumselling interest, had finally suc- 
cumbed to the power of moral and legal suasion. Not a haunt, above or 
below ground, existed where liquors could be obtained in large or small 
quantities, without extreme privacy. We were in advance of any other 
town in the county. 

The new organization, formed in the midst of excitement, and con- 
trolled by recent, though earnest converts to the temperance cause, lacked 
the steadfastness of its predecessor. Its action was spasmodic rather 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 497 

thau persistent. Souie of its most zealous members fell away within the 
first year of its life ; others followed in the downwai'd road ; the cause 
was dishonored, and the organization paralyzed. Yet, the vital principle 
had become deeply rooted and widely pervading. Without combined effort 
advancing progress ceased, though retrogression was hardly perceptible 
until the opening of the Naugatuck Railroad in 1849, and the consequent 
influx of new inhabitants not trained to temperance principles and habits. 
A more free intercourse with the outside world, and a rapid increase of 
population and wealth, tended to a relaxation of moral sentiment, and an 
acquiescence in fashionable customs and indulgences. Moral suasion 
had signally reformed our community up to the time of the Washing- 
tonian movement, but it lost its power over men recreant to their solemn 
pledges, and over both the fashionable and degraded classes of new 
comers. 

The advocacy of severe prohibitory laws indicated decadence rather 
than advance in the reformatory movement. Such laws became a neces- 
sity, growing out of a relaxation of persuasive efforts. 

In 1854 a legislature favorable to entire prohibition was chosen, and 
the Maine Law was enacted. Public sentiment was in accord with its 
stringent provisions. It carried terror to the hearts of conscienceless rum 
sellers, and filled the prohibitionists with rejoicing. For a time it worked 
like a charm. The open traffic in liquors was in a great measure aban- 
doned. Drunken men were arrested and fined, and prosecutions were 
instituted against open and secret traffickers. It was easy to convict and 
fine the poor inebriates, but to bring to justice the shrewd and unscrupu- 
lous panderers to their vitiated appetites was a far more arduous under- 
taking. It was found, as a general and almost invariable rule, that 
vitiated customers refused to betray the sellers of intoxicating liquors, 
and the proof of guilt in most cases could not be substantiated without 
their testimony. With this hindrance in the way, if the prosecutor suc- 
ceeded in making out a case before a justice court, an ajipeal could be 
taken to the higher court, where a jury trial could be had, and juries are 
very uncertain dispensers of justice. In almost every jury impaneled 
more than one juror proves to be in sympathy with the rumseller, and 
his conviction is frustrated. As a consequence, the law, when applied 
to the arch promoters of intemperance and its kindred pollutions, became 
a dead letter. 

Yet the Maine Law has not proved an utter failure, else foul-breathed 
and red-nosed demagogues had ceased to rail against it. Its terrors have 
restrained in a great measure the tempting exhibition of liquor bottles, 
and the barefaced sale of their contents in open day. It has confiscated 
thousands of barrels of vile decoctions more dangerous to life and health 
than gunpowder or glycerine. Even the staggering graduates of the 
63 



498 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

pot-house have learned to avoid public exhibitions of their accomplish- 
ments. During the long years of its neglected enforcement, it has 
retained a reserved force that could be, and often has been, applied to 
the effectual suppression of outrageous haunts of drunkenness. 

Much more good might have grown out of the Maine Law, had not the 
delusive idea prevailed among temperance men that legal enactments 
possess an inherent power to do the work of reform, which can be done 
only by stiff-backed, straight forward workers, by means of their instru- 
mentality. To this infatuation, as much as to inherent defects of the law, 
is the decadence of temperance principles and habits to be ascribed. 

Those of the surviving temperance men who labored in the field from 
1830 to 1850 — who fought the early battles, and achieved the early 
victories — have retired from active life, and another generation of 
workers, now in the held, struggling manfully to stem the overflowing 
torrent of intemperance, have an arduous but not a hopeless work before 
them. They have not, as their predecessors had, to contend with pro- 
fessedly good and pious men in settling the first principles of total 
abstinence and prohibition. Doctors of divinity have ceased to denounce 
the movement as heretical. Political demagogues no longer exhaust 
their spread-eagle eloquence in asserting the inherent right of every 
American citizen to get drunk, and to make drunkards. The question of 
to-day is rather one of expediency than of moral or religious principle. 

A "tidal wave" broke over the Legislature of 1872, and swept away, 
for the time being we trust, the fundamental principle of the Maine Law, 
and again legalized the traffic under a license system. Stump orators 
now tell us of the amount of money that is to flow into our town treasu- 
ries for licensing, and thereby clothing our rumsellers with the robe of 
legal respectability. When the disciples of Mrs. Woodhull shall apply 
for a law to legalize adultery, and license prostitution, they will find the 
principle of expediency already established, and the argument of license 
money flowing into the treasury already promulgated and irrefutably 
established. 

It is bad enough in all conscience to allow every person who wills to 
sell liquors in violation of law, but it is infinitely worse to remedy the 
evil by giving the traffic a legal sanction. The talk of licensing only 
respectable and conscientious men to deal out the villainous decoctions, 
is the merest twaddle. Where is the board of selectmen who will 
recommend for license the palatial hotel proprietor and the aboveground 
saloon-keeper and apothecary, and dare to refuse the subterranean 
restaurant, be he Yankee, Paddy, or Dutchman ? 

The temperance reformers of this era must work with an indomitable 
will to achieve the lost ground, combining moral and legal suasion wisely 
and persistently. Many excellent provisions of the Maine Law continue 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 499 

unrepealed. The passage of the new license law was a blunder of 
legislation, not in accord with the views of the legislators who permitted 
it to be enacted, nor of their constituents. Let its crude provisions and 
evil tendencies be thoroughly ventilated ; let its repeal be made a test 
question to candidates for legislative honors, and it will sooner or later 
be repealed, and the traffic in intoxicating drinks again be outlawed. 

There are in all communities numbers of men of owl-like wisdom, who 
assert as an unquestionable fact that more tippling prevails, and that the 
yearly crop of drunkards is greater in these years, than in the years 
before concerted temperance movements began. Such Jeremiahs, in 
order to speak with authority, should have been on the stage more than 
forty years ago, when there was a cider mill and a cider-brandy still in 
every school district ; when there were two or three taverns to every one 
now existing, each of them sustained more by neighborhood tipplers than 
by traveling customers ; when every store-keeper bought and sold four- 
fold more rum and whisky than molasses ; when bleared eyes, rubicund 
noses, and potbellies infested all public gatherings, and even put in their 
appearance around the communion table. Such men, if any there be, 
may rejoice at the prospect of our soon getting back to the " good old 
times " of free rum, improved by town treasuries overflowing with license 
money. 

The temperance bands now on the stage of action have arduous duties 
to perform, but not more arduous than those performed by the pioneers 
in the cause some forty years ago. They have in the last few years 
earnestly labored in stemming the flood of intemperance, amid reproach 
and discouragements Let them continue steadfast and immovable ; 
let them " trust in the Lord, and keep their powder dry," and they will 
in the end become as invincible as Cromwell's Ironsides. 

St. Andrew's Lodge of Free and Accepted Ma c ons, No. 64, was char- 
tered in the Spring of 1823, and was installed in June or July following 
by a deputation from the Grand Lodge, consisting of Jeremy L. Cross, 
William H. Jones, and Laban Smith, of New Haven ; George Putnam, 
of Hartford, and others. The officers installed were : — 

Josiah Smith, W. M. 

Hosea Hinsdale, S. W. 

Wheelock Thayer, J. W. 

Elisha Smith, Treasurer. 

James INI. Boyd, Secretary. 
The first lodge room was fitted up in the old academy building, now a 
tenant house, immediately north of Forbes' cabinet establishment, on 
Main street, west village. About 1829 the lodge was removed to the 



500 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

hotel in the east village, and about 1830 was removed to the old Higley 
Tavern in the west village. 

The anti-masonic excitement growing out of the disappearance and 
probable death of Morgan, extended to this state in 1829, and paralyzed 
the masonic order for several years. St. Andrews, in common with mo3t 
of the other lodges of the state, became dormant, and surrendered its 
charter to the Grand Lodge about 1835. 

In 1853, on application to the Grand Lodge of members of St. 
Andrew's Lodge, its charter was restored, new officers were appointed, 
and work was resumed in Woodford's original brick block, which was 
burned down, March 25, 1853, and the lodge was removed to the Clark 
and Wetmore store, then standing on the site of the Clarke House. This 
stoi'e was burned dowu in 1856, and the furniture, jewels, regalia, and 
all the records of the lodge were consumed. The lodge was reopened in 
Chamberlin's store, now owned by James A. Bushnell, and thence in 
the same year was removed to Weed's brick block, and thence to .Wood- 
ford's new block, in which a new and spacious hall for its. occupancy has 
been fitted up under the new Mansard roof recently erected on the 
building. 

Meridian Chapter, No. 15, of Royal Arch Masons was early located 
at Canaan, and its charter was revoked by the Grand Chapter in 1839. 
It was reinstated at New Hartford in May, 1848, but not reorganized. 
It was transferred and reorganized at Winsted in May, 1857, occupying 
the same halls with St. Andrew's Lodge. 

In 1858 Tyrian Council of Royal Masters, No. 31, was chartered and 
installed, and has occupied the same hall with the preceding orders. 

Prior to the reorganization of St. Andrew's Lodge in 1853, Orion 
Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was chartered, installed, 
and located in Clarke & Wetmore's store. A dissension among its 
members resulted in the charter of Union Lodge of I. 0. O. F., which 
was located in Woodford's block. On the burning of the Clarke & 
Wetmore store, Orion Lodge became dormant, and has never been 
revived. Union Lodge has also become extinct. 

Of the early and later public libraries in Winchester, only a meagre 
account can be given. In the " Old Society " a library of standard works 
was in existence early in the century, and continued until about 1845, 
when the books were sold or distributed among the shareholders. 

In the early reading days of the compiler, there was a library of un- 
known origin kept in the office of Solomon Rockwell & Brothers, between 
the east abutment of Lake Street bridge and Camp's brick block. What 
was the character of the more solid works we have no knowledge ; but 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 5Q1 

from the lighter class we obtained our first reading of The Fool of Quality, 
Torn Jones, Pamelia, and Tristram Shandy. This library was broken up, 
and sold or distributed a3 early as 1810. 

As early as 1808, under the auspices of Joel Miller and other scholars 
of the West District School, a youth's library was organized and located 
at the house of Asahel Miller, then standing nearly opposite the house of 
David N. Beardsley, on Spencer Street road. Strange as it may seem, 
this location was then central to the largest portion of the scholars of 
the district. The collection consisted mainly of paper covered volumes, 
then termed chap-books, which constituted a part of the stock in trade 
of the trunk peddlers of that period. Among the books were Robinson 
Crusoe, Baron Trenck, Stephen Burroughs, The Ring, Count de Lovin- 
ski, and other similar works, by the careful reading of which we were 
precociously trained to a love of sensational works of a higher order. 
This library was of short continuance, and would be unworthy of mention 
otherwise than as illustrative of the craving for literary food by the boys 
and girls of that day, and of the kind of provender provided for them be- 
fore the age of model children who were too faultless to live in (his sinful 
world. 

The next library was got up about 1810 by members of the Congrega- 
tional society, and was named " The Winsted Historical and Theological 
Library," and was kept in the study of the pastor. In the Theological 
department were, Edwards on the Will and on the Affections, Gilles' 
Church History, Witherspoon's Sermons, Griffin on the Atonement, and 
Kinney on the Prophecies. In history it contained Smollet's England, 
Marshall's Washington, and Trumbull's Connecticut. In its miscellaneous 
department were two strictly religious novels — Thornton Abbey, and 
Coelebs in Search of a Wife. The most readable, and most read book of 
all, was Silliman's Journal of Travels in England, Scotland, and Holland, 
then just published. This library, after some five to ten years, was pur- 
chased by the pastor, for whose use it was mainly instituted. 

About 1812, another library was organized in the West Village, and 
located at the house of Colonel Hosea Hinsdale. The books selected 
were such as the people wanted to read rather than such as a severe mor- 
alist would have said they ought to read. Russell's Modern P^urope was 
the most ponderous, and Knickerbocker's New York the most popular 
work in the collection. Butler's Hudibras and Peter Pindar were highly 
appreciated. As a whole it was a well selected library, and well man- 
aged ; but, like its predecessors, the society was dissolved, and the books 
were sold after five or six years. 

The next library was got up by a set of young men about 1820, and 
was located in the East Village. The books were suited to the taste of 
its founders. They consisted of poetry, novels, plays, and a modicum of 



502 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

history. The life of this institution was brief. The books were sold and 
scattered in four or five years. 

The last and longest-lived library was founded by parties in connection 
with the Methodist Episcopal Church. With a view to its permanency, 
provision was made in its articles of association for its being holden by 
the Trustees of the Methodist Society in trust for the use of its share 
holders. Its books were to be religious and historical, and all fictitious 
works were to be excluded. No books were, under any circumstances, to 
be sold ; any attempt to break up the library, or otherwise to dispose of it 
was to divest the trustees of their right to control it, and the trust was to 
be transferred to the town of Winchester. Though denominational in its 
character, it was not sectarian in an exclusive sense. The Life and Ser- 
mons of John Wesley, The Life of Adam Clarke and his Commentary, 
and divers other standard Methodist works constituted the nucleus of the 
collection, but beyond this the selection of books was suited to all classes 
of religionists and to every cultivated taste. A majority of the committee 
of selection were not Methodists in name or religious preferences. His- 
torical and biographical works were largely selected. Boswell's Johnson 
and Irving's Conquest of Grenada had a place on the shelves, although 
the latter was objected to as a fiction; but on a suggestion that Fra'de 
Savedra was not the author of the chronicles, but the warrior who effected 
the conquest, and that Irving was the historian of the campaign, the 
scruples of the objector were removed, and the book enjoyed a high de- 
gree of popularity. 

The funds for renovating the library by purchasing new books were 
raised by occasional taxes levied on the shareholders, and by competitive 
bids on drawing out books. This library furnished largely the reading of 
the community for nearly twenty years ; but as the first projectors, one 
after another, withdrew from its direction, a looseness of management 
prevailed. Books seldom called for were sold in violation of a funda- 
mental article of the association. The taxes laid were largely unpaid, 
and the shares forfeited. Competitive bidding ceased; drawings of books 
diminished from year to year ; valuable books disappeared ; and finally, 
about 1860, on investigating the affairs of the concern, it was found that 
only six shareholders remained who had not forfeited their shares by non- 
payment of taxes. It was found, also, that the library was reduced to a 
mere skeleton of such books as no one had considered worth appropriating 
to private use ; and in this predicament a once valuable and highly valued 
institution has become the shadow of a shade. 

And such is. essentially the history of innumerable libraries throughout 
the state, organized without a liberal fund from the income of which new 
books, as they are required, may be pi-ovided. Most of the cases where 
valuable libraries have been preserved from one generation to another are 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 503 

those where some benevolent founder or founders have provided an en- 
dowment fund for a liberal supply of new works suited to the changing 
times and tastes of successive readers. 

The changed circumstances of modern times render the support of pub- 
lic libraries far more precarious than it was when family libraries were 
limited for the most part to a Bible, Hymn book, Catechism, Pilgrim's 
Progress, a yearly almanac, and one or two devotional or biographical 
works — when the cost of miscellaneous works exceeded the means of in- 
dividual readers. In those times a public library was a blessing of price- 
less value to a community. In these times circumstances are changed. 
The press teems with thousands of new books every year ; the weekly 
newspaper, of four-fold the size of the old-time papers, is crowded with 
every variety of miscellaneous reading ; and the daily paper, once con- 
fined to the cities, now finds its w r ay to the remotest sections of the 
country. Almost every family in comfortable circumstances takes a 
monthly magazine ; and very few of them are so remote or obscure as to 
escape the visits of canvassers without number seeking subscribers for 
new and valuable works. 

Instead of permanent libraries, the tendency in these days is, to form 
book clubs of limited membership, each member contributing two, three, 
or five dollars, as the case may be, for the purchase of approved modern 
publications, which successively pass through the hands of each member 
with the privilege of a fortnight's use ; each member, at the end of his 
fortnight, passing his successive books to the next reader on the list, so 
that each book makes a complete circuit and returns to the librarian. At 
the end of the year the books are sold to the highest bidding members of 
the club, and the avails are distributed ecpially among the members. 
This process being completed, the club is dissolved or reorganized for 
another year. 

There are now two or more such clubs in our community, the oldest 
of which has existed for ten or more years. The machinery is very simple, 
and easily adjusted, and if the directing committee are competent and 
faithful in their selection of authors, the influence of such associations 
cannot but be highly beneficial. 

Another invaluable substitute for the libraries of olden times, is the 
system of free Sunday-school libraries of the various religious denomina- 
tions. Renovated from year to year by careful selections of new vol- 
umes and by withdrawing those that are found to be unreadable, or of 
evil tendency, they furnish a supply of pure and instructive reading, not 
only for the scholar.-, but for the families to which they belong. 

Times are changed, and we are changed with them. Had we at this day 
a richly endowed library, crowded with all the treasures of ancient theol- 
ogy, history, science, and poetry, and replenished with modern views of 



504 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

doctrinal theology, newly broached emendations of history, rapid advances 
of science and art, and a poetry that appeals more to the heart than to 
the ear — we might well be proud of such an institution, but it is very 
doubtful whether the people, as a mass, would be benefited thereby to the 
same extent as they are by the unpretentious modern Sunday-school 
libraries. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

RISE AND PROGRESS OF MANUFACTURES. 

The predominating element of growth in all interior New England 
towns is the introduction and enlargement of machinery in aid of handi- 
craft operations, inaptly termed manufacturing. The handicraftsman, 
comprehending the smith, carpenter, shoemaker, and tailor, comes into 
every new town as an indispensable accessory of the farmer. He com- 
bines his skilled labor with that of the soil tiller in sustaining the life of a 
civilized community. The minister, school-master, doctor, and tradesman 
follow as essential elements of its existence. These are mutual aids to 
each other. They are all primarily dependent on the product of the soil ; 
and as this is naturally fertile or otherwise, well tilled, or exhausted by 
bad husbandry, the community grows or declines. 

The manufacturer who utilizes the water-fall by making it the motive 
power of ingenious machinery, brings in a new element of growth and 
prosperity, without which most of our sterile towns decline with the ex- 
haustion of their virgin soil, and with which they are sustained and en- 
riched. 

Winchester, without its factories, would have culminated in 1800 and 
have declined in productiveness and population every succeeding year ; 
and Winsted would have remained through all time a " Hard Scrabble " 
region. 

We propose very briefly to trace the rise and progress of manufacturing 
in the town, beginning with 

Wooden Ware. 

The saw-mill was, of course, the first utilization of water power in this, 
as in most other primitive communities. The location of the earliest of 
these has already been noted. Besides supplying the home demand for 
lumber, they early turned out a limited supply of white-wood boards and 
clap-boards, which were sledded over winter snows to Hartford and other 
distant towns. White-ash sweeps, oars, aud materials for ship-blocks were 
also got out and carried t<» Hartford and Wetkersfield for up and down 
river navigation of the Connecticut. 

64 



506 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

Dish mills for making wooden bowls, trenchers, and mortars, followed 
as accessories to the saw mills. They used up the slabs from the saw- 
mill logs, by cutting them into disks which were centered and turned in 
coarse lathes to the convex surface of the outer dish. With a curved 
turning tool, the outer dish was separated from the disk, and then smaller 
ones were turned off successively until the disk was exhausted. The 
slabs from which these disks were made were wider and thicker than were 
taken from logs when lumber increased in value. The trenchers and 
mortars were turned by a similar process. The maker or peddler of these 
articles packed them into a strong bed tick, in which they were carried on 
the back of a horse, along the narrow bridle-paths to the earlier settled 
towns, where they were bartered for " store pay." At lea- 1 four of these 
mills were located along the lake stream, and as many others in various 
parts of the town in the last century, two of which — one at the Meadow 
Street crossing of the lake stream, and the other opposite the old lean-to 
mill house on Lake street, were in operation as late as 1805. 

Cheese Boxes, Scale Boards. 

Early in this century, John McAlpine erected and carried on a shop on 
the stream at the foot of the burying ground hill in Old Winchester for 
making scale-boards used for separating cheeses from each other, when 
packed in casks for distant markets. As he enjoyed a monopoly of the 
manufacture in the centre of the dairy region of Connecticut, the demand 
for his article was extensive until the practice of packing each cheese in 
a separate box was adopted. This change necessitated the manufacture 
of round boxes, with covers, of sizes fitted to the various diameters and 
thicknesses of the cheese. This mode of packing went into vogue between 
1820 and 1830 and was universally adopted as early as the latter year. 
One of the earliest manufacturers of this article in Winchester was Silas 
H. McAlpine, whose shop on the Naugatuck Branch is believed to be still 
in operation. Another establishment on Hall Meadow, now owned by the 
Ford Brothers, has been and is still in operation. Another establishment 
was carried on in Winsted by Cook & Bacon, from 1842 to about 1846, 
in a shop adjoining the lake stream sawmill. 

% Grist Mills. 

The two early grist mills of the town have been already noted. The 
first, built by David Austin in 1771, near the Lake outlet, is described on 
page 42 ; the second, supposed to have been originally built by Elias Bal- 
comb about 1776 (see page 266), stood on the west side of Still river, 
immediately south of the stone bridge. It was owned and operated for 
many years by Ensign Jesse Doolittle, and was carried off by a flood 
about 1800 ; and was rebuilt by Samuel and Luther Hoadley about 1844 
/see page 383). 



MANUFACTURES. 507 

Both these mills had three run of stones and were carried by per- 
manent water power. The Austin mill was rebuilt by the Rockwell 
Brothers about 1810, and was finally burned down and abandoned in 1835. 
The Hoadley mill was abandoned by Riley Whiting about 1825 and the 
Brick clock factory (burned down in 1870) was erected on its site. 

The Clifton mill was erected by Case, Gilbert & Co., about 1836, and 
was operated as a grist mill until about 18 69. 

Three or more feed mills have come info existence within a few years; 
one owned by Eugene Munson, opposite the Clarke house, another owmed 
by Persons & Hewitt, on the Lake stream, adjoining the Connecticut 
Western Depot grounds, and a third, owned by Frederick Woodruff on 
North Main street, all of which are now in operation. 

Scythe Works. 

Until the closing part of the last century, the scythe was, in this 
country, strictly a hand-made tool, wrought out in smiths' shops by sledge 
and hammer, and ground on a stone turned by a hand crank, or hung on 
the shaft of a flutter wheel, without gearing or other appliances. The 
Harris family of Pine Plains and Salisbury learned the trade of a negro 
slave purchased by their immediate progenitor from a former master who 
had taught him the trade. 

The first establishment in the country for welding, drawing, and plating 
the scythe under trip-hammers by water power and grinding it on a 
geared stone, was erected by Robert Orr, of Bridgewater, Mass., during 
or after the Revolution. The second establishment of this nature was 
erected by Col. Robert Boyd, near the west bank of the Hudson, between 
New Windsor Landing and Newburg before 1790. Benjamin Jenkins, 
from Bridgewater, was foreman, and James Boyd, of New Windsor, was 
an apprentice in these works. They became brothers-in law, and in 1792 
came to Winsted and erected the third establishment in the country on 
the site of the Winsted Manufacturing Company's present works on Still 
river. In 1802 they built another establishment on the site of the Winsted 
Hoe Company's plating shop on Lake street, and soon after separated, 
Mr. Jenkins taking the original works on Still river — from whom they 
have passed by successive conveyances to the present owners — and Mr. 
Boyd taking the Lake Street works and carrying them on, individually or 
with partners, until near the close of his life in 1849. 

Merritt Bull, an early apprentice of Jenkins & Boyd, erected a scythe 
shop in 1802 or 1803, on the site of the present stone shop, at the cross- 
ing of the Lake stream by Meadow street, which he managed until his 
death in 1824, when the works went into the hands of S. & M. Rock- 
well, and formed the starting point of the large and prosperous establish- 



508 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

ment built up and managed by the successive firms of Rockwell & Hins- 
dale, Hinsdale & Beardsley, Elliot Beardsley, and the Beardsley Scythe 
Company. 

Halsey Burr, an apprentice of Mr. Jenkins, built a scythe shop in 
1814, near the site of Woodruff's feed mill, on North Main street, which 
he carried on in a small way until a few years before his death. 

In 1831, Wheelock Thayer, previously a partner and acting manager 
in the scythe business of James Boyd & Son, erected the scythe works 
on Mad River, now owned by his daughter, and carried on by the Thayer 
Scythe Company. 

The process of manufacturing scythes has been from time to time 
greatly improved by the invention of new machinery. The first of these 
in date and importance, was a spring die with attachments to the trip- 
hammer for holding the back and setting down and smoothing the web of 
the scythe, — a very slow and laborious process when performed with the 
handdaammer. The next improvement was, by a series of light tilt- 
hammers to shape and finish the point : — the next was a machine for turn- 
ing and finishing the heel : — another Avas fur spinning the straw rope for 
binding up the scythes in dozen packages, by a machine similar to the 
Dutch wheel and flyer for spinning linen. Most of these improvements 
have originated in Winsted. 

Scythe making was — with the exception of wooden ware — the earliest 
factory work carried on in Winsted ; and has been uninterruptedly pros- 
ecuted to the present day, little impeded or accelerated by protective tar- 
iffs. The three establishments now in operation, have a capacity for 
making 250,000 scythes per annum, and rarely fail of turning out that 
number. Within a few years, fears have been entertained that the newly 
invented mowers and reapers would entirely supersede the use of the 
primitive implements. The same fears were not many years ago enter- 
tained, that the iron horse would so far supersede the much abused do- 
mestic animal, as to diminish his value and the demand for his services. 
Experience proves that these fears in both cases are equally groundless. 

Bar Iron and Blistered Steel. 

Bar iron had been made directly from the Brown Hematite ores of 
Salisbury, Kent, and Amenia, from time immemorial. In Litchfield county 
bloomary forges stood on most of the available water courses in nearly 
all the western towns. They furnished iron for three rolling and slitting 
mills, one in Canaan, another in Litchfield, and the third in Washing- 
ton, where the iron was rolled and slit into rods for nail making. These 
mills worked up only a small portion of the iron manufactured. Besides 
domestic uses of all kinds, it was largely made into anchors, which were 
sent to the seaboard. 



MANUFACTURES. 509 

Nearly all of these bloomaries, and all of the slitting mil!-, have long 
since disappeared; and their sites would mostly be forgotten, did not the 
cinder heaps and imperishable charcoal brays indicate their location. 

The old Salisbury, or Lakeville Blast Furnace, was erected in 1762. 
In 1768 it became the property of Richard Smith, an Englishman, 
who initiated the process of making refined iron of the best quality, 
not from the ore, but from pig-metal. For some inscrutable reason 
he erected his first refining forge at Robertsville, in the southeast corner 
of Colebrook, at a distance of nearly thirty miles from his furnace, in a 
region then nearly destitute of settlers.* Mr. Smith went back to Eng- 
land on the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and the forge was 
continued in operation successively by Jacob Ogden, Theo'dore Burr, 
Elisha Beeman, and David Squire ; and was abandoned as an iron works 
by the latter person before 1810. 

Two other refining forges were erected at Colebrook Center, by the 
Rockwell family, during, or soon after the Revolution, one of which was 
removed to Winsted in 1802, and the father abandoned the same or fol- 
lowing year, for causes detailed on page 363. 

In 1795, Jenkins & Boyd, in company with Thomas Spencer, Jr., 
erected the first forge in Winsted, on the water power of the Lake street 
grinding works of the Winsted Mfg. Co. (See page 311.) 

In 1803, the Rockwell Brothers removed and put up their Colebrook 
forge on the site of Timothy Hulbert's present iron works on the Lake 
stream. 

In 1808, James Boyd erected another forge on Mad River, immedi- 
ately oppo.-ite the Clarke House ; and on that or the following year the 
Rockwell Brothers built another forge on the Lake stream, below and 
adjoining the Conn. Western Depot grounds. 

In 1811, Reuben Cook, in company with Russell Bunce and Charles 
Seymour of Hartford, built the old Cook forge, on Still River, where the 
Axle works of Charles and James R. Cook now stand. 

All of these forges manufactured refined bar iron from the best quality 
of Old Salisbury Ore Hill pig iron, for the supply of the U. S. Armory 
at Springfield, which required the best iron the country could produce. 
If there w r as the slightest defect in the quality, the finished gunbarrel 

* One reason traditionally assigned for this location was, that lie apprehended a 
scarcity of charcoal in the Salisbury region for the furnace, in the event of his enlarg- 
ing- the consumption by running additional iron works there. 

There is another vague tradition that this forge was first erected on the Farming- 
ton River at Collinsville : and that not being able to sustain his dam, he removed the 
establishment to Colebrook. There was in ancient times a forge where the first of the 
Collins Company buildings wis afterwards erected, known as the "Humphrey 
Forge," but its existence seems to have continued later than the erection of the " Old 
Forge " at Colebrook. 



510 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

would reveal it by defective polish or failure to stand the proof of a double 
test charge. Only a limited portion of the iron made could be brought up 
to these crucial tests by the best skilled workmen. Iron of a slightly infe- 
rior grade was required for scythes, wire rods, and fine machinery. A 
still lower grade answered for the ordinary uses of country blacksmiths. 

In the process of refining, the cinders drawn off through the tent plate 
retained a percentage of iron nearly equal to the ordinary hematite ores. 
This was worked over in a chafery or bloomary fire, and produced a 
strong coarse iron, which was worked into tires, axle and crow-bar pat- 
terns, and plow molds, or into heavy shafting, saw-mill cranks, &c. Each 
forge had in connection with it a drafting shop with lighter hammers to 
draw down the bars into rods and shapes of all kinds in demand, and es- 
pecially to work up the refuse iron by welding to each piece an equal layer 
of blistered steel, and drawing the united masses into sleigh-shoes. 

The iron and scythe business constituted the staple manufacturing busi- 
ness of Winsted until near 1840, when the Government had settled its 
policy of importing its gun iron from Norway ; the English had introduced 
better and cheaper iron of every form and size than theretofore ; when the 
puddling process of iron making had grown up in more favored localities ; 
when' wood and charcoal had advanced in price, while transportation of 
raw material and manufactured articles — always a heavy burden — 
could no longer be endured. Under all these discouragements the iron 
manufacture rapidly died out. The lower Rockwell forge on the Lake 
stream was converted into a scythe shop about 1845. The Boyd forge 
opposite the Clarke house breathed its last about the same time. The 
upper forge on the lake stream lingered on until about 1850. The mid- 
dle forge on the Lake stream was sold by Elliot Beardsley to Timothy 
Hulbert in 1853, and was changed into a forge for puddling scrap iron, 
and is still in successful operation. The Cook forge, on Still river, about 
1850 confined its operations to working scrap iron into axle drafts for 
finishing in the Cook Axle Company's works, of which the forge became 
a component part. 

The consumption of bar iron in Winsted, instead of decreasing with the 
decadence of its home manufacture, has steadily increased. The new 
brands of Norway iron were found cheaper and better for scythes, hoes, 
and other articles than the costly home-made refined iron, and came into 
general use in our hardware manufactures. The scythe manufacture in- 
creased. The hoe manufacture was introduced and soon consumed more 
iron than the whole scythe interest had required in 1830 ; and other new 
hardware manufactures took the place of the iron forge. 

Blistered Steel. 
The first cementing steel furnace in Western Connecticut was erected 
before 1800 in Colebrook by the Rockwell Brothers, under the supervision 



MANUFACTURES. 511 

of Mr. Jencks, an ingenious iron and steel worker from Taunton, Mass., 
which has been perpetuated to the present time, though rarely operated 
of late years. It was found that the Salisbury iron was deficient in the 
ingredient, whatever it is, that produces an edge-tool quality in steel. The 
steel produced has an elastic quality fitting it for carriage springs, hay 
and manure forks and similar articles, and before 1850 was largely used 
for these manufactures, and likewise for sleigh shoes and for general 
blacksmith work. Since 1850 the steels made from Swedish and Russian 
irons have nearly superseded the domestic irons except those recently 
made from Spathic ores. 

The second steel furnace in this region was put up early in this century 
by Col. Abram Burt, in Canaan, Conn., and continued in operation but a 
few years. The third was erected in Winsted by James Boyd & Son, in 
1832, on the site of Thompson's Bakery, south side of Monroe Street, 
adjoining the bridge. It was designed for converting their own iron into 
steel, which they were then largely supplying to fork manufacturers ; but 
was soon abandoned by reason of inducements held out by the Colebrook 
concern, making it more advantageous to have their iron converted there 
than to do it themselves. 

Cut Nails. 

Shingle nails were cut from old hoops and headed by hand for the First 
Congregational Meeting House in 1800. The cutting machine is supposed 
to have been worked by hand. Another machine for cutting shingle nails 
from hammered strips of iron, by water power, was started by James 
Boyd about 1808, and soon abandoned. 

In 1810 Jesse Byington rented water power from the old Jenkins 
scythe shop proprietors, and erected a nail factory a little south of the 
Winsted Manufacturing Company's scythe works, in which he used a 
newly invented machine for cutting nails more accurate and uniform in 
size than by the old hand machines, but without heading them. Before 
and during the war of 1812 he employed more men as cutters and headers 
than were employed in any other branch of business in the place. After 
the return of peace in 1815, and the introduction of the combined cutting 
and heading machine, Mr. Byington's business broke down, and has never 
since been resumed in any form. 

Axes. 

Axe-making as a trade, distinct from other smith work, was introduced 
here by Elizur Hinsdale in 1804 or 1805. He first had his shop on Lake 
street, near the lake outlet, and in 1806 erected a shop on the site of the 
Foundry and Machine Company's works, which he subsequently enlarged 
to a trip hammer and grinding works adapted specially to his business, 



512 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER 

which he prosecuted until near the close of 1819, when he failed, and the 
business was abandoned. 

About 1828, after the Collins axe factory went into operation at Col- 
linsville, Nathaniel B. Gaylord, then owner of the old Jenkins scythe 
works, entered into the business of axe-making under the supervision of 
Marcus Morgan, an original worker in the Collins establishment. Mr. 
Morgan soon after purchased the works and prosecuted the business until 
1832, when he sold out to Reuben Cook, Luman Wakefield, John Camp, 
and others, who, with a view to continuing and enlarging the business, 
tore down the old building and built a stone dam and commodious factory 
building, before the completion of which they decided to change the busi- 
ness to scythe making; and in 1835 obtained a corporate charter, under 
the name of the Winsted Manufacturing Company, which has for thirty- 
seven years had a prosperous career, with good promise of long continuance. 

Iron Wire. 

In 1812 Samuel and Luther Hoadley and James Boyd erected a wire 
factory on the west wing of the clock factory dam ; the first, or one of the 
first, erected in the country for breaking down iron wire from the rod and 
drawing it down to any size from a half inch to a hair's diameter. The 
rods, of the very best Salisbury iron, were hammered down to a half inch 
square, and then rounded by trip-hammer swaging dies, and then, after 
successive annealings were drawn down by " rippers," as they were called, 
to a size whence they could be further reduced by a continuous drawing 
around an upright block. It was the ripping operation, by self-acting 
pincers seizing the point of the wire at the plate, drawing it about eighteen 
inches, then letting go and sliding back and taking a new hold at the 
plate, and drawing another length, which was then new in this country. 
At that period there were few, if any, rolling mills in the country that 
rolled out round rods suitable for wire drawing. 

The business was profitable, and was vigorously prosecuted until the 
close of the war, when foreign competition paralyzed it, and compelled its 
abandonment. 

Leather. 

In the last century, the regular shoemaker — as distinguished from the 
cobbler and cat-whipper — was also a tanner. He had his vats, under 
cover, in or out of doors, in which he tanned his own and his neighboi"'s 
skins, and made them into boots and shoes on the same premises with 
his tan vats. Of these tanneries there were in the last century three 
or more in Old Winchester, to which the traveling currier periodically 
resorted, and curried, or smoothed and softened thd sides of leather 
when taken from the vats. The oak bark then solely used for tanning 



MANUFACTURES. 513 

had its outer surface shaved off, and was then pounded, or crushed under 
a heavy circular stone attached to a ten-foot shaft, stationary at one end, 
and rolled round a circle by a draft horse, — the bark being distributed 
along the circular track, and kept there by a man or boy with a rake. 
Two of these, owned respectively by the Wade and Blake families, con- 
tinual in operation, by water power and modern impiovements, until 
about 1850. Both are now abandoned. There was a like establishment 
in Win-ted, erected and owned by Elias Loomis, at the close of the last 
century, at the loot of " Dish Mill Hill," where the Woodruff tannery 
now stands, which was abandoned many years before the present works 
were erected. 

About 1800 it was practically ascertained by trial that hemlock bark 
possessed the astringent and other properties requisite for tanning; and 
in consequence the business was thenceforward conducted on a larger 
scale in the Green Woods region. 

Colonel lio-ea Hinsdale and Col. James Shepard came to Winsted in 
1802, and erected a large tannery on Spencer street, where the fish pond 
of John T. Rockwell has lately been excavated. The business was suc- 
cessfully prosecuted here by Col. Hinsdale until 1851, when he sold out 
to J. S. and .J. T. Rockwell. 

In 1<S07 Col Shepard sold out, his interest to Col. Hinsdale, and in 
company with Asahel Miller, erected the original tannery, on the site of 
tiie present tannery of George Dudley & Son. This establishment was 
owned and managed successively by Shepard & Miller, Abiel Loomis, 
and Alanson Loomis, until purchased by George, Dudley in 1832. 

In 1820, another tannery was erected by Horace Ranney, at the corner 
of North Main street and the Cook bridge, taking its water power from the 
west wing of Cook's dam, which was successively owned and managed by 
Ranney & Hawley, Norman Spencer, Jonathan K. Richards, Charles B. 
Hallett, and others, and was abandoned as a tannery in 1857. 

In 1821, Horace Ranney erected another tannery, on the site- of the 
present Woodruff tannery, on North Main street, now owned by George 
Dudley & Sou, which was successively managed by Lewis & Foster until 
1834, by James A. Ayrault until 1811 ; since which it has been owned 
and managed by Frederick Woodruff until his recent sale to Dudley & 
Son; it having during his ownership been carried away by a flood, and 
afterwards rebuilt and enlarged. 

The tannery business of Winsted has, since 1850, been confined to 
preparing sheep and calfskins for book-binding and similar purposes, and 
has become one of the prominent branches of our manufactures. The 
skins are imported from England, after having been split into two or 
more thicknesses, salted and packed in hogsheads, ready for the vat. 
The bark is finely ground in a mill in the second story of the building, 
65 



514 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

and passed to a large receiving vat, where it is soaked in water until 
the tanning principle is extracted, when the liquor, or tea, as it is termed, 
is drawn off into a line of receiving vats, and the exhausted bark is 
thrown out. A paddle, or flutter wheel is fixed over each vat and con- 
nected by gears with a line of shafting propelled by water power. A suf- 
ficient number of vats are filled with the hemlock tea ; the right number 
of skins are thrown into each vat, and the flutter wheels are set in motion 
and operate on the surface of the liquid, creating a current which keeps 
the skins in constant movement, and perfects the tanning process without 
hand labor. The tanned skins are then smoothed, trimmed, assorted, and 
packed for market ; the whole process requiring less than three weeks' 
time. 

This branch of business was originated in Wins ted by George Dudley, 
before 1850, in the works he purchased from Alanson Loomis in 1832. 
In 1853 he rebuilt and enlarged his works, and added two three-story 
buildings for dying the skins when tanned. In company with his son he 
has recently purchased and now carries on the Woodruff tannery on North 
Main street. During the present year, 1872, they have consumed in 
both tanneries 6,000 tons of bark, and have turned out 432,000 skins. 

In 1851, J. 8. & J. T. Rockwell, previously engaged in this branch 
of tanning in Colebrook, erected the four-story tannery on the site of the 
Hinsdale premises. These works, now owned by John T. Rockwell, 
are believed to turn out nearly the same amount of work with the larger 
tannery of the Dudleys. 

Woolen Cloths. 

Joseph Piatt is believed to have been the first clothier in the town. 
He built a clothier's shop and fulling mill in the Danbury Quarter, be- 
tween 1783 and 1787. The establishment had a brief existence. It 
is not mentioned in any deed on record, and its precise locality is un- 
known. 

The first clothier in Winsted was Daniel Marshall, (?ee p. 307,) whose 
shop stood on Lake street as it then ran, nearly opposite the house at the 
corner of Lake and Rockwell streets, and the fulling mill in the rear on 
the Lake stream. Mr. Marshall died in 1794, and Daniel Wilcox be- 
came the owner until his sale of the premises to the Rockwell Brothers 
in 1813. A carding machine was added to the establishment about 
1804. The Rockwell Brothers, in 1813, erected additional buildings 
and began the manufacture of broadcloths and satinets. The business 
was enlarged and vigorously prosecuted during the continuance of the 
war of 1812, and moderately thereafter until 1830, in the hope of mak- 
ing it a paying business, but with doubtful success. In 1835 the works 
were burned down, and never rebuilt. 



MANUFACTURES. 515 

About 1816 another clothier's works was erected by Ansel Wilson, on 
the sit;' of the Strong Manufacturing Company's new factory. Chester 
Soper purchased this establishment about 1830, and a few years after 
erected a woolen mill on the premises, in which he manufactured broad- 
cloths until about liS38. The works were afterwards carried on by John 
Thornton and others until 1845, when tin; woollen business was abandoned 
and the building afterwards used for making joiners' tools. 

Another clothier's works, built about 1814 on the Naugatuck branch in 
Old Winchester, and carried on by Alva Nash and others until 1828, 
when it was converted into a woolen mill for making broadcloths and 
satinets by John M. Galagher, who failed within a few years and was 
succeeded by Isaac Bird, who continued the making of satinets, until the 
establishment went into the hand-; of the Winchester Center Mfg. Co., in 
1854. This Company confined its operations to making woollen knitting 
yarn until the establishment was burned down about 1860, and was 
never rebuilt. 

The Home Manufacturing Company, a joint-stock concern, was organ- 
ized in 1846, and the ^ame year erected the factory building on Mad 
River now occupied by the New England Pin Co., and went into the 
manufacture of broad cloths and doeskins. It labored under the 
disadvantage of having no stockholders acquainted with the business, 
and was unfortunate in selecting overseers of the manufacturing depart- 
ment. No profits were realized; and in 1850 the concern was wound 
up. The establishment was sold to Anson G. Phelps, who operated it 
in connection with his woolen mills at Wolcottville until 1852, when it 
was purchased by the Hartford Pin Co. 

Not one of the foregoing enterprises proved successful, and most of 
them ended disastrously. 

Clocks. 

Samuel and Luther Hoadley, and Riley Whiting began the manufac- 
ture of wooden clocks about 1807, in a small factory building immediately 
south of the east wing of the stone bridge on Still River. The 
machinery was carried by a tin wheel on an upright iron shaft. The 
cog-wdieels were of cherry, the pinion was of ivy, or calmia, and the 
face of white-wood — all home products. These, with a little wire, a 
very little steel, brass, tin, and cordage, made up the staple of material 
in the old one-day shelf clock which they produced and scattered all 
over the United States and Canada. 

The Hoadleys retired from the, business — Luther dying in 1813, and 
Samuel, the same year, going into the army. Riley Whiting, the 
remaining partner, prosecuted the business with energy and final success. 
In 1825, he tore down the old grist-mill on the north wing of the bridge 
and built the brick factory, recently burned down, and engaged in making 
eight-day brass clocks. Mr. Whiting died in 1835, and in 1841 the 



516 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

concern was purchased, by Lucius Clarke, and has since been conducted 
by Clarke, Gilbert & Co., W. L. Gilbert, The Gilbert Manufacturing 
Company, and "The William L. Gilbert Clock Company," incorporated! 
by the Legislature of 1871. In 1870, the brick building erected by Mr. 
Whiting, and a large wooden one adjoining, was burned down ; on the 
site of which the company erected a spacious three story brick factory 
building, and in 1872 a similar building on the south side of the road, 
where the original wooden clock factory building stood ; the two making 
the largest manufacturing establishment in the borough. 

Cards. 
At the beginning of the war of 1812, two establishments for making 
hand and machine cards were started, one by Coe, Miller & Co., in the 
Shepard & Miller Tannery, and the other by the Hoadley Brothers in 
their grist-mill. Both companies used one set of machines for cutting 
and bending the teeth, and another set for pricking the leather, and the 
teeth were inserted in the leather by children at their homes. Other 
machines shaped and turned the handles on which the hand card leathers 
were fastened by tacks. Two causes put an end to this branch of 
manufacture; one, the return of peace in 1815, and the influx of cheaper 
cards from England, — and the other, the invention by Mr. Levi Lin- 
coln, of a combined machine which, in one operation, pricked the leather, 
cut and bent the teeth, and stuck them through the pricked leather. 

Wagons and Carriages. 

There were, doubtless, wheelwrights and wagon-makers in Old Win- 
chester at an early clay, but the compiler has no knowledge of them 
Randall Covey had a wagon-maker's shop at the Centre from 1817 to 
1821. 

Joseph Mitchell was probably the first wheelwright in Winsted. His 
house and shop, now torn down, were directly opposite the residence of 
Sheldon Kinney on Main street. He made cart wheels and bodies from 
the beginning of the century, or earlier, to about 1830. 

Selden Mitchell, son of Joseph, above, made light wagons in the 
basement in rear of the Kinney house above mentioned from 1809 to 
about 1820. 

In 1813, Shubael Crow and Ebenezer R. Hale erected a carriage- 
maker's shop on the site of John T. Rockwell's tannery, in which wagons 
and chaises were made until after 1830 by Crowe & Hale, Crowe & 
Bandle, Henderson & Ball, and others, — the premises having been used 
from 1823 to 1826 for manufacturing pails, tubs, and keelers by Hinsdale 
& Dimock. 

Wagon making was subsequently carried on in Winsted by James 
Hermance from 1838 to his death in 1840, and by G. W. Gaston from 
1849 onward to 1872. 



MANUFACTURES. 5^7 

In 1851, Walter & Son erected a large carriage shop on the corner of 
Elm and Center streets, which has since been managed successively by 
Erwin M. Walter, Uriah S. Waller, W. II. Stickney, and others, and is 
now owned and managed by Franklin Lincoln. 

In 1856 the Winsted (Joint Stock) Carriage Company was organized 
and carried on a large business in Southern wagons and buggies until the 
opening of the War of the Rebellion, occupying the old Soper woolen 
factory. In 1866 the company was re-organized with a reduced capital, 
and Marcus Baird, Walter Stickney, Wm. S. Holabird, and others, as 
stockholders, and was wound up in 1867. 

The Gihnan Carriage Company was organized with a capital of 
$25,000 in 1867, and purchased the factory property of the Winsted 
Carriage Company; and soon after, on the burning down of the factory 
building, erected a spacious establishment on the same site with facilities 
for a large business. This establishment was burned down in 1870, and 
the operations of the company were thereby suspended. 

Another carriage establishment was erected on Case Avenue in 1870 
by Walter Stickney, Bennet Palmer, and Wilbur F. Green, with capacity 
for a large amount of work. 

Whiskey. 

A company of grain speculators, at the close of the War of 1812, 
found themselves loaded with several thousand bushels of rye, bought at 
a high price, in the hope of selling it at a still higher, if not extortionate, 
rate, to needy consumers of the article. The pri e in market fell with 
the return of peace. Nobody wanted to buy; the article was growing 
musty on their hands, and they — shrewdly, as they thought — resolved to 
turn it into a commodity that never lacked consumers. So they built a 
whiskey distillery half way up Walleu's hill, ea-t of the clock factory, 
and a sty for forty or fifty swine to be fattened on the de-alcoholized 
mash. The rye was ground at the mill where it was stored ; the breathing 
hob- of hell vomited it; pestilent smoke, the whiskey trickled from the 
undying worm of the still, and the swine bloated and fattened on the 
mash, until the frowzy grain was converted into vile whiskey and viler 
pork. The most bloated drunkards around home wouldn't drink the foul 
whiskey, and so it was sent away to markets where sots with ie-s delicate 
stomachs could be found; and the pork, not being relished at home, was 
salted, packed, and shipped for negro consumption in the Carolina market. 
On the voyage to Charleston, it became so tainted and offensive that it 
was thrown overboard to prevent a pestilence on the vessel. On stating 
the profit and loss of the whole transaction, the profit was found to be a 
minus quantity, and the lo-s positive and total of the whole investment. 
The distillery building and hog sty were taken down and removed, and 
not a trace of their location remains. 



518 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

Linseed Oil. 

An Oil Mill was erected by Bissell Hinsdale, on Mad River, a little 
west of the Clifton Mill works, about 1816, which was worked only a few 
years, and was removed before 1830. 

Hay and Manure Forks. 

The Spring Steel Hay and Manure Forks were introduced as a substi- 
tute for the coarse and clumsy articles previously in use, soon after the 
war of 1812. They were made here in numerous small shops by handi- 
craftsmen, no machinery, save the sledge and hand hammer, propelled by 
muscular arms, being used. Large quantities were made, not only for 
supplying the country stores, but for the New York and Philadelphia 
markets. The three Browns. Orrin, Harris and Isaac, Oliver White, Ju- 
lius Weaver, and others, were engaged in this business. Establishments 
grew up in other places in which the tilt-hammer came into use lor draw- 
ing out the tines, which made the hand labor operation unremunerative ; 
and ihe business was, in a great measure, abandoned here about 1850. 

Foundries. 

The casting of iron clock bells was begun in Winsted by the Hoadley 
Brothers, about 1810, as a secret process in a detached building, from 
which outsiders were rigidly excluded. The skilled founder of the estab- 
lishment ran away after some two years service. In 1812 Nathan Cham- 
pion commenced the same business in the Jenkins scythe shop that stood 
on the Strong Manufacturing Co.'s premises, and afterwards built a shop 
near the Winsted Manufacturing Co.'s works, in which he made other 
small castings. 

In 1JS34 Nathaniel B. Gaylord erected a foundry on the site of the 
Strong Manufacturing Co.'s works for casting stoves, plows, gears, and 
general custom work, which he operated until 1846, after which it was 
carried on a short time by Calvin Butler, of Canaan, and was then 
abandoned. 

In 1847 Taylor & Whiting erected a foundry in connection with their 
machine shop now owned and operated by the Foundry and Machine 
Company, which is now the only establishment in the borough. 

In 1853, John Boyd erected another foundry for large castings in con- 
nection with his machine shop adjoining Lake Street bridge on Mad 
River, which was discontinued in 1854. 

Machine Shops. 

In 1831, George Taylor erected the original building of the. present 
Foundry ami Machine Company's establishment on Main street for mak- 



MANUFACTURES. f> 1 

ing woolen machinery as a specialty and doing general job work in that 
line. Two years later he associated with Ambrose Whiting as a partner 
in the name of Taylor & Whiting. They did a large business in carding 
machines and spinning jacks for some twenty years. After the retirement 
cf Mr. Whiting in 1857, the concern was organized as a joint stock com- 
pany with the name of The Winsted Foundry and Machine Company, by 
which the business is still carried on. 

In 1823 James Boyd and James M. Boyd began making saw-mill 
cranks, mill spindles, and various other branches of heavy forging in a 
shop then built on the west side of Mad river, in rear of the Beardsley 
house. To this business James Boyd & Son added in 1830 the making 
of finished coach axles and mill screws. In 1851, after the death of Mr. 
James Boyd, the junior partner erected the present machine shop on the 
site of the old shop, for the purpo-e of enlarging the mill-iron and axle 
bu-iness of the old firm; and in 1853 built the foundry last referred to as 
an appendage to the establishment. The works were purchased by the 
Clifton Miil Co. in 1857, and were a few years after employed in the 
manufacture of monkey wrenches. They are at present idle. 

About 1840, Reuben Cook & Sons went into the manufacture of finished 
axles at their iron works, and in 1852 organized "The Cook Axle Co.," 
which enlarged the business and erected the brick factory building on the 
site of the old Cook forge, for this manufacture. 

In 1864 the company was dissolved and the business resumed by R. 
Cook & Sons, and is now continued by Charles and John R. Cook. 

IIoks, Shovkls, and Carpenters' Tools. 

About 1828 Samuel Boyd engaged in the manufacture of steel hoes and 
shovels, and erected the original buildings of the Clifton Mill Company 
works on the south side of Mad river. He also manufactured in these 
buildings nail hammers, socket chisels, and draw shaves until 1833, when 
the business was discontinued. 

In 1852 John Boyd, Louis R. Boyd, and Daniel B. Wheelock began 
to manufacture planters' hoes for the Southern market in the brick scythe 
works at the corner of Lake and Meadow streets. It was a new business, 
and encountered serious difficulties, one of them being the anti-slavery 
proclivities of the first and third partners, of which the Southern custo- 
mers were duly notified by competing manufacturers. The obnoxious 
partners withdrew from the concern, and it became a decided success 
under the name of "The American Hoe Co." The hoes became the 
leading article in the market. They were sent to England and duplicated 
as to the style and finish by English manufacturers, hut their work proved 
inferior in working cpjality. 

The establishment was enlarged by the erection of grinding and polish- 
ing works on two other water powers, and in 1855 employed more hands 



520 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

than any other concern in the borough. In 1868 the establishment was 
purchased by Horace and Ralph W. Booth, and was continued in opera- 
tion hy L. R. Boyd, until paralyzed by the slave-holders' rebellion. It 
remained idle; during and after the war until 1866, when it was purchased 
and resuscitated by the Winsted Hoe Company, which has also purchased 
the Clifton Mill works, and added to hoe-making the manufacture of 
socket chisel-, draw shaves, and wrenches. 

Bolts and Nuts. 

The Clifton Mill Company, soon after the purchase of Samuel Boyd's 
works on the south side of Mad river, engaged in the manufacture of nuts 
and washers, and about 1855 added carriage bolts and nuts to its other 
manufactured articles, adding for that purpose the three story building on 
their premises, and also the Boyd machine shop at the loot of Lake Btrei t. 
On the purchase of their works hy the Winsted Hoe Co., the nut and 
bolt manufacture was discontinued. 

Another carriage bolt manufacture was started on the premises of R. 
Cook & Sons by Franklin Moore and Edward Clarke about l.Sf>7, which 
is still in active and successful operation, under the .ownership and man- 
agement of Mr. Moore. 

Table Cutlery. 
In 1852 the "Eagle" works, a joint stock company with a capital of 
$25,000, was organized and put in operation under ihe supervision of 
Albert Bradshaw, an English cutler, in a brick factory building on the 
Lake stream adjoining the Connecticut, Western depot grounds. The 
busine -s not proving successful, operations were suspended about 1854, 
and in 185(5, the establishment was purchased by Rice. Lathrop & Clary, 
under whose owner hip the brick factory building was burned down, and 
a smaller wooden building wa ; and soon afterward the 

anjer factory building on Mad river, near the corner of Main and Coe 
streets, was purchased. This building was burned down and rebuilt about 
1866. Mr. Clary died in L861, and Mr. Rice retired from the concern in 
1862. George F. Barton came in a- a partner with Mr. Lathrop in 
1861, and retired from the partnership in 1872, leaving Mr. Lathrop the 
present sole owner. The concern has been impeded and crippled by two 
successive fires, but is still carried on with a reduced busin 

Pockkt Cutlery. 

In 1853 Thompson & Gascoigne (Englishmen) carried on a -mall 

pocket cutlery business in the factory of the Eagle Co., which was soou 

after taken up by Beardsley iV Alvord, aid gradually enlarged ami made 

profitable. In Lt>of>, they built their cutlery works at the Lake outlet, 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 521 

and have since transacted a large and prosperous business in the name of 
"The Empire Knife Company." 

In 1854, C. F. Clark, an Englishman, started a pocket cutlery concern 
in the attic of the Cook axle factory, which was taken up by Horace 
Phelps, and after a trial of one or two years, was abandoned. 

Augers. 

The Winsted (Joint Stock) Auger Company was organized in 1853 
with a capital stock of $10,000, and immediately after erected the factory 
on Mad river near the corner of Coe and Main streets, at a cost beyond 
their capital. It was managed inefficiently by men unacquainted with the 
business, and was wound up before 1860. 

Steel Fire Ikons. 

Benjamin & Edward Woodall (Englishmen) began making, of highly 
polished steel, shovels and tongs and other fire irons, about 1850; and in 
1854 organized the " Winsted Shovel and Tongs Co.," under the agency 
of Justus R. Loomis, they bought the Halsey Burr scythe shop and 
water power, and erected the factory building now used as a feed-grinding 
mill by Frederick Woodruff, on North Main street. The concern lacked 
capital, energy, and business skill, and was closed up about 1857. 

Fins. 

In 185*2 Erastus S. Woodford, J. B. Terry and others organized "The 
Hartford Pin Co." (Joint Stock), and purchased of Anson G. Phelps the 
woolen factory building on Bridge street, opposite the Naugatuck Railroad 
depot grounds, and began making pins the same year. The company at 
once came into conflict with the Howe Pin Co. of Birmingham, in respect 
to a patented sticking machine for sticking the pins on paper, which im- 
peded operations until the question of infringement was settled by litiga- 
tion in the U. S. Circuit Court. In 1857 the factory property and ma- 
chinery of the company became the property of James R. Keeler, who 
conveyed the same to " The New England Pin Co.," organized in May of 
the same year, and composed of said Keeler, Hector Armstrong, C. O. 
Crosby, and John G. Wetmore, stockholders, and with a capital of 100,000 
dollars. 

Under this organization the business has been vigorously and pros- 
perously conducted to the present time and bids fair to continue one of the 
leading manufacturing interests of the place. The company also manu- 
factured percussion caps for a few years, and afterwards shoe laces and 

braids. 

66 



522 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



Joiners' Tool-. 

The "Winsted Plane Company, organized in 1851, entered on the man- 
ufacture of Joiners' tools in the old Soper woolen factory building, and 

continued until about 1850, when it became insolvent and was wound up. 

Lumber. 

The Clifton Lumber Co. Avas organized in 1854, and erected the build- 
ing near the Naugatuck depot, now occupied by the Winsted Printing 
Co., for planing lumber and manufacturing doors, sashes, and blinds by 
steam power. The concern was wound up in 1857. 

Plated Wake and Coffin Trimmings. 

The Strong Manufacturing Co. was organized in 1866 by David Strong, 
Clark Strong, and others, for manufacturing plated handles and other 
coifin trimmings as a specialty. They erected their factory buildings on 
the site of the Gaylord foundry, .and have since prosecuted the business 
largely and successfully, their wares being sold to every section of the 
country. They have recently purchased the water power of the Gilman 
Carriage Co., and are now (December, 1872) laying foundations for an 
additional factory building of capacity for more than doubling their work. 

The business promises to be large, successful, and permanent. 

Another company or partnership, consisting of Ralph II. Moore, 
Franklin Moore, and others, has this year (1872) erected a factory on 
Case Avenue for making plated spoons and other plated articles. 

Condensed Milk. 

The Borden Condensed Milk Co., consisting of Gail Borden, Theron 
Bronson, and Elhanan W. Tyler, was organized in 1863, and purchased 
the factory building near the Naugatuck depot, now occupied by the Win- 
sted Printing Co., in which they condensed milk until I860, when, not 
finding the location favorable for the business, the concern was wound up. 

Carriage Springs. 

The Henry Spring Co. was organized at New Haven in 1869, and its 
location was transferred to Winsted in April, 1870, and the grinding 
shop on Lake street, erected by the American Hoe Co., was purchased by 
the Spring Co., and its machim ry placed therein. The business has been 
vigorously prosecuted to the present time (1872). with a promise of be- 
coming large and permanent. The company has this season erected an 
additional building for enlarging their working power. The Spring made 



AND FAMILY RECORDS. 523 

by them is a patented article combining equal strength and elasticity with 
springs of other manufacture of a third more weight, and are in constantly 
increasing demand for light buggies and carriages. 

A tendency has prevailed here for the last thirty years among moneyed 
men, to " try all things and hold fast that which is good " in the way of 
manufacturing. This accounts for the large number of joint stock com- 
panies of brief existence and Unsuccessful ending herein recapitulated. 
They have been slow to learn that manufacturing operations, organized 
and conducted by men not specially qualified and experienced in the 
branch of manufacture undertaken, are almost inevitable failures. Not- 
withstanding these drawbacks, profitable manufacturing operations have 
steadily increased, have never been more profitable than at the present 
time, and have never given surer promise of permanence and enlargement. 



CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION 



Town of Winchester, 

CONNECTICUT, 



AND OF THE 



First Ecclesiastical Society of said Town. 



AUGUST 16th and 17th, 1871. 



REPORTED BY 

HENRY E. ROCKWELL, Esq., Phonographer. 



67 



PRELIMINARY. 



The following article appeared in the Winsted Herald of April 21st, 
1871 :— 

" We are desired to say that the organization of Winchester as a cor- 
porate town occurred on the 22d of July, 1771 : and those citizens 
desirous of commemorating the event are requested to meet at the 
Lecture Room of the Second Congregational Church, West Winsted, on 
Monday evening, April 24, 1871, at seven o'clock, to consider and adopt 
preliminary measures. A prompt attendance of all persons interested is 
earnestly desired, the time for action being brief, and the preparations to 
be made important." 

Pursuant to the foregoing call, a meeting was held at the time and 

place therein designated, and a committee, representing the several 

sections of the town, was appointed to consider and report to an adjourned 

meeting as to the desirableness of a commemorative celebration, and as 

to the time, place, and manner of arranging the same, and the following 
committee was appointed : — 

Theron Bronson, Thomas M. Clarke, 

Abel S. Wetmore, Charles H. Blake, 

Ira W. Pettibone, Samuel L. Andrews, 

Isaac A. Bronson, Rollin L. Beecher, 

Benjamin W. Pettibone, Charles Cook, 

Samuel Hurlbut, James R. Alvord, 

James L. Bragg, John T. Rockwell, 

John Boyd, George M. Carrington, 

William G. Coe, Hiram Perkins, 

Normand Adams, Elias E. Gilman, 

Timothy Hulbert, Moses Camp. 

This committee, after mature consultation, published in the Winsted 
Herald, and in printed notices, circulated throughout the town the follow- 
ing call for an adjourned meeting, to be held on the 6th of May, 1871 : — 

" The town of Winchester was organized, and the first town meeting 
held, in July, 1771. It is proposed that we celebrate that birth-day of a 
hundred years ago : that we call home the wanderers from the old town 



528 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

and their descendants, wherever scattered, spread a tent, bring together 
history, reminiscences, and cheerful story ; and as a big family reunited, 
talk over the old times. Shall we do it ? The undertaking requires the 
enthusiastic aid of every man and woman. 

" Citizens of Winsted, and of the whole town, are requested to meet at 
the Second Congregational Church this week, Saturday evening, May <ith, 
at half-past seven, to decide the matter. Ladies are especially invited* 
and men modestly entreated, to attend and say the celebration shall go 
ahead. Such preparations are already made that this meeting can act 
decisively and effect a prompt and eificient organization if it will. If the 
community is indifferent to the project, neglect to attend this meeting 
will effectually kill it. 

"THERON BRONSON, 

" Chairman of Committee." 



Pursuant to the above call, a meeting was held at the time and place 
therein named, and was called to order by Theron Branson, Esq., 
chairman of the advisory committee, llollin L. Beecher was appointed 
chairman, and George M. Carrington, clerk. 

After remarks by Wm. G. Coe, John Boyd, M. P. Hubbell, and 
others, those in favor of a celebration were called on to manifest it by 
rising ; carried by a nearly unanimous vote. The time of holding the 
celebration was fixed for the last two weeks in August, the exact time to 
be named by a supervisory committee afterwards appointed. 

The organization of the first Ecclesiastical Society of Winchester having 
occurred during the same year with the town organization, it was decided 
that the celebration should occupy two successive days, the first to be 
commemorative of the Ecclesiastical Society, the services to be held at 
Winchester Center, and managed by citizens of that society, and in the 
evening a reunion of a social character to be held in Win-ted ; and the 
second day's exercises to be specially connected with the town organiza- 
tion, and to be held in Winsted. 



The following committees were then appointed : — 

General Supervisory Committee. — William G. Coe. John T. Rockwell, 
James A. Bushnell, Samuel Hurlbut, Theron Bronson, -lames L. Bragg. 

Finance.— Henry Gay, Charles II. Blake, .lames II. Welch, Rufus 
E. Holmes, McPherson Hubbell, Silas Hurlbut, John McAlpine, Samuel 
M. Muusill, David Le Hoy. 

Invitations. — Rev. Frederick Marsh, Abel S. Wetmore, Alva Nash, 
John Boyd, Ira W. Pettibone, George M. Carrington, Theron Bronson, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 529 

John Hinsdale, William C. Phelps, B. B. Rockwell, Mrs. Norris Coe, 
Mrs. Leonard B. Hurlbut, Miss Mary P. Hinsdale, Mrs. Harvey L. 
Roberts. 

Exercises and Ceremonies. — Samuel B. Forbes, Roland Hitchcock, 
Thomas M. Clarke, Rev. Arthur Goodenough, Ira W. Pettibone, Isaac 
A. Bron<on, Abel S. Wetmore, Mrs. Ellen A. Phillips, Miss Julia E. 
Rockwell. 

Tents and Audience Rooms. — David W. Coe, Kollin L. Beecher, 
Edward R. Beardsley, Hiram Perkins, Samuel L. Andrews, Isaac A» 
Bronson, Frank L. Whiting, Frederick L. Loomis, John J. Fanning, 
George Tibbals, Worthy B. Bray. 

Reception and Entertainment of Guests. — Charles Cook, Caleb J. 
Camp, James R. Alvord, John G. Wetmore, Aug. M. Perkins, Wm. P. 
Lathrop, Lucius Griswold, Normaud Adams, James L. Bragg, Edward 
H. Bronson, Lorenzo S. Nash and wife, William W. Waugh, Samuel 
Hurlbut 2d, Mrs. Harvey Andrews. 

Collations. — Winsted, Jabez Alvord, George W. Kinney, Jenison J. 
Whiting, George White, Caleb P. Newman, Mrs. Lyman Case, Mrs. 
Henry A. Bills, Mrs. Charles Cook, Mrs. William G. Coe, Charles B. 
Hallett, Robert R. Noble ; Winchester Society, Joseph M. Marsh, 
Samuel M. Munsill and wife, Dudley Chase and wife, Isaac Dayton, 
Samuel W. Starks, William Johnson, Luman Munsill and wife, Martin 
Drake, Newton Phelps, David Le Roy, Harvey Andrews and wife, 
Orrin Tidier and wife, Benjamin F. Waugh, Alonzo T. Parsels and 
wife, Frederick M. Baldwin and wife, William L. Munsill and wife, 
Trumbull H. Brooks, Mrs. William W. Waugh, Mrs. Catherine M. Car- 
rington, Mrs. George W. Beach, Miss Mariette Whiting, Mrs. Sally Drake, 
Mrs. Theron Bronson, Mrs. George Tibbals, Mrs. Frank L. Whiting, 
Mrs. Worthy B. Bray, Mrs. Abel S. Wetmore, Miss Sarepta Munsill, 
Elizabeth Tibbals. 

Decorations and Antiquities. — Wm. L. Camp, Clarke Strong, David 
W. Coe, Miss Elizabeth Kilbourn, Mrs. Isaac B. Woodruff, Miss Phebe 
A. Brazie, McPherson Hubbell and wife, Horace Humphrey, Mrs. Le- 
Roy W. Wetmore, Miss Ellen Chase, Miss Kate Murray, Miss Louisa 
M. Canington, Mrs. Clara Turner. 

Music. — Edward Clarke, Rufus E. Holmes, John F. Peck, George 
Dudley, junior, Joseph II. Vaill, Eugene W. Meafoy, Harvey Andrews, 
Frederick Murray, Mrs. Luman Munsill. 

Registration. — Harvey L. Roberts, Rollin H. Cook, Hubert P. 
Wetmore, Wilbur M. Bronson, Le Roy W. Wetmore. 

Bonfires and Illuminations. — Lamphier B.' Tuttle, George E. 
AVoodford, Homer W. Whiting, Spencer G. Pierce, Wilbur F. Coe, 
Marshall G. Wheeler, Solomon R. Hinsdale, Edward E. Dayton, George 



530 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Tibbals 2d, Lyman Tibbals, Chester Dayton, George E. Andrews, James 
F. Beach. 

Processions and Bands. — Winsted, Colonel William T. Batcheller, 
Colonel Jeffrey Skinner, William F. Hurlbut, Florimond D. Fyler, 
Salmon A. Granger, Eugene W. Meafoy ; Winchester Society, Frederick 
Murray, Henry Drake, Nelson D. Ford, Elias T. Hatch, Nelson Brooks, 
Washington Hatch. 

Corresponding Secretary. — George M. Carrington. 

Recording Secretary. — Henry Drake 2d. 

Marsfials. — Colonel Ira W. Pettibone, Colonel Wm. T. Batcheller. 

The supervisory committee having fixed on the 16th and 17th days of 
August for the commemoration, the following circular was issued, and 
distributed by mail to all known former residents of the town, or their 
descendants, residing out of the County of Litchfield : — 



iliciIii&Ete© ©MrtMiaM 



It is proposed to commemorate the year of the organization 
of the Town and of the First Church of Winchester, Conn., 
by a 

(Senfermial ©elcbtaiion, 



16th and 17th IDeiys of AUG-UST, 1S71- 

Arrangements are in progress for appropriate Ceremonies 
and Services. 

The Centennial of the Church will be celebrated in the Old 
Society of Winchester — where the first church was organized — 
on the 16th, forenoon and afternoon. In the evening a 
(Reunion of a social character will be held in Winsted. The 
Centennial of the Town will be celebrated in Winsted on the 
iyth. 

You to whom this Circular is sent, whether allied to us by 
birth, wedlock, a sometime residence, or in whatever man 
are cordially invited to attend this 'proposed Reunion of the 
Sons — children by i.\ are children all 

the same — of icr, and thus contribute to animate and 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 531 

make memorable an occasion which can occur but once in a 
lifetime. Come, bringing your sheaves with you, and let's 
have a grand harvesting of the crops whose seeds wind and 
wave have been this hundred years scattering. 



Provision will he made for the reception and entertainment 
of those who may signify to the Committee their intention to 
he present— notice of such intention to he addressed, as early 
as convenient, to Geo. M. Carrington, West Winsted, Ct. 

FREDERICK MARSH, MRS. HARVEY L. ROBERTS, 

JOHN BOYD, MRS. LEONARD B. HURLBUT, 

ABEL S. WETMORE, JOHN HINSDALE, 

GEO. M. CARRINGTON, IRA W. PETTIBONE, 

THERON BRONSON, WILLIAM C. PHELPS, 

MARY P. HINSDALE, ALVA NASH, 

MRS. NORRIS COE, B. B. ROCKWELL, 

Committee of Invitation. 



P. S.—Yow are requested to invite any descendants or 
former residents of Winchester not specially invited, through 
accident, or want of knowledge, to he present as guests of the 
town. 



AUGUST 16, 1871. 

The town was filled with sons and daughters of " Old Winchester," 
gathered from every section of the country. The exercises of the day 
were at Winchester, in commemoration of the institution of the first 
Congregational Church. 

" The arrangements were admirable. A large pavilion tent on the 
Green, in front of the Meeting House, accommodated a large concourse 
of people, the porch serving as a platform and speaker's stand. Theron 
Bronson, Esq., presided, and Colonel Ira W. Pettibone officiated as 
Marshal, with Edward H. Bronson and Henry F. Marsh, assistants. 
Harvey Andrews, musical conductor." The church front was decorated 
with evergreens, and bore the names of Pastors Knapp, Bogue, Bassett, 
Marsh, Dill, Pettibone, and Goodenough. 

Rev. Frederick Marsh, ninety-one years old, was present, and took 
part in the exercises. 



532 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The exercises were opened with reading by Deacon Abel S. Wetmore 
of the following hymn, composed by the reader, which was sung to the 
tune of " Auld Lang Syne " : — 

CENTENNIAL HYMN. 



[Written by request.] 
God of our life, our fathers' trust, 

Thy blessing now we crave ; 
Deep in the ocean of thy love 

May our glad spirits lave. 

Unite our hearts, and tunc each voice 

Inspire our lips to sing, 
A loud Hosanna to thy name ; 

A heart-felt offring bring. 

This festive day, one hundred years 
Since Winchester was named, 

"We welcome friends, from far, and near, 
And sing with loud acclaim. 

One hundred years, since our grand-sires 

Adopted this their home, 
When fierce wild .beasts, and savage men 

The wilderness did roam. 

With pious hearts, and robust forms, 

Our fathers hither came, 
A rustic temple reared to God, 

In which to praise his name. 

This church at once was organized, 

A pastor soon ordained ; 
And we, this day, commemorate 

Our blessings thus obtained. 

Seven Pastors here have been installed, 
To teach, and guide the flock; 

Knapp, Bogue, and Bassett, and F. Marsh, 
Of Puritanic stock ; 

And next came Dill, then Pettibone, 

The fifth, and sixth in turn ; 
We now rejoice in Goodenough, 

Wise lessons may we learn. 

Well may we mingle joys, and tears, 

As we recount the past, 
A century ! — a hundred years ! 

Can old Time always last ? 

Ah, no ! and when life's toils are o'er, 

And we arc called away, 
May each, enwrapped in Christ's embrace 

Spend an eternal day. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 533 

The president announced that owing to the illness of Rev. Ira Petti- 
bone he would call on their pastor, Rev. Arthur Goodenough, who read 
the 67th psalm, and invoked the blessing of the Deity as follows : — 

PRAYER. 

Most merciful and ever blessed God ; Thou who art the God of our 
fathers, and art still the same to-day, merciful and gracious and forbearing 
toward the descendants of them that believed on thy name, that loved 
thee; shewing thy kindness even unto the third and fourth generation; 
oh, our Heavenly Faiher, wilt thou be with us and bless us on this day 
of commemoration. May we indeed feel that thou art present, inspiring 
our thoughts and affections, raising our desires heavenward, making us to 
rejoice in Thee, and to rejoice in what Thou didst fur those who have gone 
before us, and for us who have entered into possession of that which they 
have left. Our Heavenly Father, wilt thou make us all to rejoice in Thee, 
and grant that harmony of feeling may prevail among all those who gather 
here to celebrate this day. 

Give thy blessing to all who shall take part in these exercises, that they 
may have thy grace resting upon them, and be able to discharge the du- 
ties that devolve upon them; and may all present feel that they are in- 
structed and benefited ; and may thy children be strengthened in faith ; 
and may the influence of the memory of thy dealings with our fathers, 
and the history of their lives as it is recorded and made known to us to- 
day, be such as shall enable us to see thy favor to them, and lead us back 
to the God of our fathers and to the old land-marks of piety, faith, and 
love, by which they were guided. Oh, our Father, wilt thou be near to 
us, and make us to rejoice in Thee, as thine own children ; and more and 
more, as Ave are permitted to live in the world, may we feel that Thou art 
the guide of all our steps ; and may we commit our ways to Thee, that 
Thou mayest direct in all our paths. Guide us and give us thy grace, 
and save us for Christ's sake, amen. 

The following original hymn was then sung : 

HYMN. 

WRITTEN FOR THE WINCHESTER CENTENNIAL BY DR. W. J. WETMORE. 

Tune — Ann rica. 

Here in this sacred fane, 
Let us in joyful strain 

Praise Thee above ; 
Dear ones here seem to stand, 
A consecrated hand 
From memories' hallowed land, 

Hearts that we love. 

68 



534 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Then let our thanks arise. 
Like incense to the skies, 

In songs divine ; 
Our gratitude to show 
To those who here below, 
A hundred years ago 

Reared Faith's pure shrine. 

Their names are sacred yet, 
Nor shall we e'er forget 

Friends passed away 
On Jordan's peaceful shore, 
Life's toil and trouble o'er, 
They sleep forevermore — 

Dear hallowed clay. 

Father, on Thee we call, 
Thou art our hope, our all, 

Our faith and love ; 
Here on each bended knee, 
May we Thy glory see, 
And dwell at last witli Thee, 

In Heaven above. 



ADDRESS BY REV. HENRY B. BLAKE. 

The following historical address was then given by Rev. Henry B. 
Blake, a native of Winchester, but now a resident of Wilmington, N. C. 

Psalm 50 : 2. — Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. 

Brethren and Friends: We meet lure to-day for a holy purpose; 
we gather from varied wanderings at ihe old home. The old hills greet 
us on every side. The houses in which we were born open their doors to 
us. We drink water out of the old wells, from their deep fountains. 
The streams into which we cast our first fishing lines murmur their glad- 
ness. Trees that were set since some of us were children whisper wel- 
come to us. 

We renew to-day the memories and affections of other, and perhaps 
distant, years. We enjoy again the pleasures and learn the lessons of our 
youth. The rocks around which we played in our childhood are in their 
old places, and many of the faces of those with whom we played then 
are here to-day. Should we know them if we saw them in a land of 
strangers? The by-gone years ask leave to pass in review before us and 
show their life. Without disturbing their repose, we shall call up the 
dead that we may see their forms and hear their voices, giving them 
a resurrection in our hearts. We would enshrine the influences and mem- 
ories of these fading years before they pass into oblivion. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. ,535 

We who are the children of those years meet each other with glad wel- 
comes to-day. We looked into the same faces, sat on the same benches, 
roamed over the same fields and heard the same benignant tones in Sab- 
bath worship, and we have never forgotten onr birth place. We recount 
gratefully the loving Providence that has been over all our life and grown 
young again in the memory of our early years. 

A hundred ye:irs ago and these hills and valleys, covered, through im- 
memorial time, with the silence of the unbroken forest, taking on the soft 
verdure of spring, the sere and yellow leaf of autumn, the crystal glory 
ot winter, rearing and giving to decay their mighty monarchs through 
uncounted centuries, disturbed by no sound but the voices of nature and 
the stealthy footstep of the savage, had heard, for a few years, the sound 
of the woodman's axe, and felt the heat of the woodman's fire. Clearings 
were seen here and there, and the early dwellings of the pioneer. Paths 
were cut through the forests and the signs of civilization began to appear. 
It is one of the evidences of our immortality that we are ever seeking 
for someihing better. Men are ever looking after a paradise somewhere, 
and so the dwellers in the lower lands on our Southern shores, had come 
up here to make homes for themselves and their children. There was a 
divine hand in it. 

True to the instincts of their puritan origin, these settlers early made 
provision for Christian institutions, and on the 30th of October, 1771, 
Rev. Amrai R. Robbins of Norfolk, and Rev. Nathan Roberts of Farm- 
ington, constituted Mary Loomis, Hannah Averit, Dinah Filley, wife of 
William, John Hills, Seth Hills, Adam Mott, Abiah Mott, Lent Mott, 
Abram Filley, Robert Macune, Joseph Preston, Mary Preston, Amy, wife 
of Joel Beach, and Elizabeth Agard the first Church in Winchester. I 
suppose the constitution of the Church was in the first meeting house 
which was built probably in 1769. It stood half a mile south of the 
present site, about twenty rods to the right of the present road on the 
brow of the hill. It was a rude unfinished building, 24 by 30, resting on 
chestnut logs, and having rough seats of planks or slabs. 

Imagine the settlers on a crisp October morning, the hills just swept of 
their autumnal glories, gathering in such a structure, for such a purpose. 
The smoke is rising from the log houses in the clearings here and there 
among the hills. There is not a wheeled vehicle in the town, there are 
no roads, only paths. These two pioneer ministers come in from their 
distant homes. The people are in homespun, and the place is rude. But 
the occasion is momentous, the beginning of a Church of Christ, the 
home of Christian influences, the center of all that is worth any thing in 
this human life, and the source of all our hopes in the eternal future. 

Credentials are examined, and with psalm and prayer, and the word of 
God, these fourteen believers solemnly assent to the great doctrines of the 



536 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

puritan faith, and enter into solemn covenant with God and with each 
other. Then five more, on the same confession, arc added to their num- 
ber, and, with psalm and benediction, the services are closed, and the in- 
fant church begins its course. 

The soc'K't} r was constituted before the church, in 17G8. There were 
several candidates for the ministry. Among them we find the names of 
Mills, Starr, Johnson, Potter, and Brooks. Father Mills preached a 
considerable time. Tn the old parish book, we find these entries: 

Voted, if Mr. Mills cannot come to try Mr. Johnson. 

Voted, if Mr. Johnson cannot come to apply to the Association for ad- 
vice. 

Voted, That Mr. Bellamy hire a candidate for us. 

Voted, That Mr. Robbins assist Mr. Bellamy. 

Voted, David Austin to read the psalm. 

Voted, That Beriah Hills shall assist in reading the p?alm. 

Voted, That John Hills and Abram Filley shall set. the psalm. 

The first pastor of this church was . Rev. Joshua Knapp, a native of 
Danbury, a graduate of Yale College in 1770. He was ordained here 
November 11, 1772. The Council consisted of Rev. Messrs. Bellamy of 
Bethlem, Roberts of Torrington, Lee of Salisbury, Brinsmaid of Wash- 
ington, Farrand of Canaan, Canfield of New Milford, Newell of Goshen, 
Benedict of Woodbury, Day of New Preston, Robbins of Norfolk, Hart 
of North Canaan, and Starr of Warren, with their delegates. Mr. Rob- 
bins preached the sermon, which was published and of which some copies 
remain. Mr. Farrand offered the ordaining prayer, and Dr. Bellamy 
gave the charge. 

Mr. Knapp is spoken of as a man of fluent and ready gifts, not studi- 
ous, and somewhat careless in worldly matters, lie was sound in the 
faith and a strenuous opposer of the half-way covenant, and by his influ- 
ence the church was established. Mr. Knapp was dismissed October 13, 
1789. He preached afterwards in New Hartford, North Canaan, and 
Milton in this county, and Hamilton, N. Y., and ended his days with his 
son-in law, Dea. Abel Hinsdale, in Torrington, March 23, 1816. His 
grave is here with his first people. 

In 1783 and 1784, there was a revival of religion here and eighty-four 
persons were admitted to the church during the ministry of Mr. Knapp. 

The first deacon in the church was Seth Hill-, burn Sept. !•'!, 1736; 
chosen deacon Dec 15, 1772; died at Vernon, N. Y., June 3, 1826. He 
was the son of Benoni Hills, who was a native of Northampton, and came 
here from Torrington, and died at the age of 93. His children were 
numerous. 

The selection of Deacon Hills is evidence enough of his supposed emi- 
nent fitness for his. office; his life, 1 am told, justified their estimate. He 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 537 

remo?ed to Vernon, N. Y., in 1798. His son, Deacon Ira Hills, of that 
place, is with ns to-day. His sister, Mary Hills, was the mother of Dea- 
con Loomis The second deacon was Samuel Wetmore, chosen in 1777 ; 
died March 2, 1809. 

Deacon Wetmore, if we may judge of him from tradition as well as 
from what we know of his descendants, known to so many of ns, and so 
many of whom are he^'e to-day, was a man of marked ability, and we are 
assured of his eminent piety and usefulness. The farm which he subdued 
is supposed to be the only land in the town which has been in the posses- 
sion of the same family a hundred years. It is now the home of his 
great-grandson, Deacon Abel S. Wetmore. 

On the 16th of March, 1773, Samuel Wetmore leased to Seth Hills, 
Wareham Gibbs, Oliver Coe, and the rest of the inhabitants of the 
society, for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, a piece of ground for a 
burying place. You know where it is with its enlargements. There are 
but few of us who have not trodden the paths to it with sorrowing feet. 
There our dead wait the trump of the archangel and the resurrection 
morning. Let it be the joy as it is the duty of those who dwell here to 
keep it as becomes the receptacle of such precious treasures till He whose 
eye is ever on the sleep of his beloved comes to call his own. 

The second church edilice was built in 1786, and was 54 feet by 40. 
Many of us remember it, as it stood alone in unadorned grandeur on the 
Green, with its high pulpit and sounding-board, its high pews and narrow 
singers' seat, and its tything-men. We remember too the preaching we 
heard in it, even when we were so young our friends supposed it made no 
impression on us, and we shall remember it 

" Wliile life and thought and being lasts, 
And immortality endures." 

Rev. Publius V. Bogue, the second pastor of this church, was ordained 
Jan. 26, 1791. He was the son of a minister in Avon, and was born 
March 30, 17G4. His father died when he was two years old, and his 
early education was limited. For a time he was in the army of the Rev- 
olution. He was converted at 18 and graduated at Yale College in 1787. 
He was licensed by the Hampshire Association at Feeding Hills, Mass. 
Mr. Bogue was a man of tine personal appearance and address, and an 
able and useful preacher. He was dismissed on the 20th of March, 1800, 
much to the regret of his people, and his wife said that he used to say in 
after years that he had never been sorry lie left Winchester but once, and 
that was always. He finished the house in which I was born, long occu- 
pied by Dr. Wetmore, and now by Leonard 15. Hurlbut. 

After leaving Winchester, Mr. Bogue preached at Vernon, N. Y., at 
Georgia, Vt., at Paris, N. Y., and his ministry was greatly successful. He 



538 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

died suddenly at his house in Clinton, N. Y., in the 73d year of his age 
and the forty-fifth of his ministry. ''The memory of the just is blessed." 
A general revival of religion occurred near the close of Mr. Bogue's 
ministry, its fruits were lasting and blessed. He received fifty-one 
members to the church. 

Eliphaz Alvord was chosen Deacon June 19, 1799, and died April 15, 
18^">, aged 83. He was eminent for many years in the church and in 
civil affairs. The history of the town cannot be given without an extended 
notice of him. He began at his house the Thursday evening prayer meet- 
ing, which was continued, almost without interruption, in the eastern part 
of the parish for forty years. 

Robert McEwen — Macune — descended from the Scotch Covenanters, 
came from New .Stratford at 22 years of age in 17GG or '67, took up four 
hundred acres of land, cleared the forest with his own hands, and built 
his house. He married, about the time of the organization of the church, 
Jerusha Doolittle, of Stratford. He brought his bride, who was seventeen 
years of age, to their new home on a pillion, making the journey, forty 
miles, in a single day. She endured the ride bravely till it was dark, and 
they were coming up through the dense hemlock forest below the hill 
when she exclaimed, " Where are we going?" " We are almost there," 
he replied, and soon they came out into the cheerful clearing. 

For two or three years, while Mr. McEwen was hewing down the 
forest, he often attended public worship in Norfolk. In a leaf of a diary 
of his which I have seen is this entry. "July y" 17 in yr 1770. Heard 
y e famous Mr. Whitfield preach at Norfolk from John y e 5: 25, which i 
hope was a word in season to me." Perhaps this was the day of his con- 
version. 

When the church was organized he was chosen Moderator and Clerk, 
and the early records show that the meetings were often holden at his 
house. The house he built, now owned by Deacon Munsill, is, I judge, 
one of the oldest in the town. He was chosen Deacon July 12, 1799, 
and died November 16, 1816. Of him and bis family yon will hear more 
as these- exercises go on. His son was that eminent minister of the gos- 
pel, Abel McEwen, for fifty years pastor of the church in New London, 
a line scholar, a courtly gentleman, a genial friend, a builder of the 
wastes in Eastern Connecticut, a leader of his generation, a man of whom 
it might have been said when he was seventy years of age, that though 
he. had never lived in bis native county since his majority, he knew more 
of its history, more of the life of its men. than any man who had always 
had bis home in it. 

His son, Rev. Roberl McEwen, is now living at New London. Of 
him I may say, after a long and thorough acquaintance, be is one of the 
most complete Christian nun 1 have ever known. Though laid aside 
from a ver\ useful ministry, his life is a blessing wherever il i -. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 539 

The second daughter of Dea. McEwen was married tu James Beebe, 
who came from Litchfield, succeeded to the farm, and was in my boyhood 
a leading man in the church, and in the town. " Squire Beebe" he was 
always called. If the pastor was sick or away, he read the sermons in 
the sabbath service. He was moderator of parish and town meetings, a 
Christian magistrate, a representative and a senator in our general assem- 
bly. He had a large and intelligent family, none of whom remain in the 
town. He died at a very advanced age only a few years since in Ohio. 
When he was very aged, Dr. McEwen made him a visit, and he said it 
was worth a journey to Ohio to see the look of joy that came in Bro. 
Beebe's face when he recognized bim. 

It belong* to another to sketch the families prominent here in the last 
generation. I may be allowed, on the score of filial piety, a brief notice 
of two men who came here before 1800. 

Adna Beach came from Goshen. He was a grandson of John Beach, 
one of the first settlers of Goshen, whose descendants are almost number- 
less and found in all departments of life. He first settled a mile west of 
the meeting-house, but removed north into the forest, which he cleared 
and there he built his house. His wife was Mary Stanley. One of the 
earliest things I remember is the funeral of my grandfather, which oc- 
curred in April, 1820, before I was three years old. He had nine child- 
ren, and they all lived till the eldest was seventy years of age. Twenty 
of his grand-ons and nearly as many of his granddaughters are now in 
active life. Three of his grandsons are in service in the ministry, and 
others are successful and useful in other pursuits. He and his wife and 
several of his children and grandchildren were members of the church. 

Elijah Blake came here in 1798 from Torringford, where his sons in 
their boyhood were the playmates of Samuel J. Mills. He was a de- 
scendant of one of the early settlers of Dorchester, Mass. He was not 
a member of the church but always maintained family prayer and a con- 
sistent life. He died in 18^3. His wife was Sarah Hamlin. She died 
in 1811. Father Mills attended her funeral and said in testimony of her 
worth, that his mind went back to Joppa when the widows stood weeping 
around the dead body of Dorcas, showing the coats and garments she had 
made. You may find a large number of the names of the children 
and grandchildren of this family on the rolls of the church. One son 
and one grandson have held the office of Deacon. One great-grandson 
fills'a popular Unitarian pulpit in Boston, and another has a large law 
practice in New York. 

The third minister of this people was Rev. Archibald Bassett. He was 
a native of Derby, and graduated at Yale College in 1796. He was or- 
dained here May 20, 1801. He was a line scholar and an able writer 
and preacher, but his ministry here was short. He was dismissed Aug. 



540 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

27, 1806. He afterwards settled al Walton, N. Y., where he died at an 
advanced age. Thirteen were received to the church during the ministry 
of Mr. Bassett, and eleven before his settlement after the dismission of 
Mr. Bogue. 

And what shall I say of the fourth pastor of this church ? We thank 
God that, after a life of more than sixty years among bis people, and 
pasl the age of ninety, he is with us, to-day, linking us to the earlier life 
we commemorate. The companion of those ancient men, as we look into 
his face, some of us after the lapse of years, the tide of time rolls back, 
our fathers and mothers, the venerable men and women of our early 
years, gather around bim and we stand in the midst of our departed ones. 

Of the man who married my father and mother, and baptized all these 
children, and gathered almost every one of us into the church, and buried 
those who died early, who was with us when we gathered at the golden 
wedding around the old altar, and who when the time of their departure 
in peace and triumph came, was with us, as we laid our dead away to rest 
till the coming of Christ, from whom I received gratuitous instruction by 
which I gained admission to college, whose constant friendship has been 
a joy in our family for sixty year.-, whose life has been a benediction in 
this community, I must speak though he is with us. 

Frederick Marsh was bom in New Hartford, September- 18, 1780. His 
youth was under the ministry of Dr. Griffin, in the midst of those re- 
markable revivals of religion whose influence he has felt and extended in 
all his life. He fitted for college with the Rev. Mr. Robbins, of Norfolk, 
graduated at Yale College in 1805, studied Theology with the Rev. Mr. 
Hooker, of Goshen, was licensed at Salisbury in 180(3, and ordained here 
February 1st, 1809. He relinquished his salary and asked for a colleague 
Feb. 1, 1846, and was dismissed Oct. 2, 1851. Of the ability and faith- 
fulness, the earnestness and zeal of this ministry, and the simplicity, purity 
and benevolence of this life, I shall not speak at length. The record 
is in our hearts and on high. Early in the ministry of Mr. Marsh there 
came to the parsonage, one September evening about nine o'clock, a young 
lady who was teaching the school in Danbury Quarter. She had ridden 
on horseback, with Sarah Benedict, over the hills to Deacon Alvord's to 
attend the conference meeting, and had come from that meeting to tell the 
young pastor that she was in great anxiety about her soul. After the 
interview, which added to her distress, they mounted their horse and rode 
up through the dark woods to Danbury Quarter. In the morning she 
resumed her school and soon became a happy Christian. 1 Deed not tell 
what Polly Grant has done in b< r generation. She was the firs! convert; 
so far as he know-, under the mini-try of Mr. Marsh. 

1 cannot 3peak at length of the revivals that occurred during this pe- 
riod. Their hi.-toi-y is a part of the history of our New England. How 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 54J 

pungent their convictions of guilt were, how keen was the anguish of those 
experiences, some of you know. What sources of heroic life and glorious 
death they were, the world knows. How they peopled the mansions of 
the Father's house, how they swelled the songs of heaven, will be known 
in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. No other such scenes 
of solemnity and joy does this earth witness. They were in 1813, 1815 
and '16, 1820 and '21, 1826, 1831, and 1842. Two hundred and three 
persons were added to the church in this ministry. Since his dismission 
Mr. Marsh has done a good deal of pastoral work among his people, 
and received many tokens of their kindness. On the 11th of March, 18G0, 
Mrs. Marsh left her family and this world, and entered into rest. A na- 
tive of the same town, the fitting companion of such a man, Parnal Mer- 
rill was married to Mr. Marsh on the 22d of May, 1809. The patient, 
untiring, and efficient helper of her husband in all his work, the faithful 
and loving mother of her children, the courteous, hospitable mistress of 
her home, the kind friend of all who came within the sphere of her life, 
she deserves an honored and loving remembrance, now that we are trying 
to gather up the treasures of our past, and put them for safe-keeping into 
the casket of the future. 

Their children were eight, of whom five still live. The same house 
has been the home of the family, and largely the home of the whole 
people, for more than sixty years. 

If it please God may this life be continued a little longer, for it seems 
to us the sunlight and shadow will fall more lovingly on these hill-sides, 
and we knoio that the affections of many a wanderer will cluster more 
sweetly around the old spot, while it lasts ; and when it passes it will be 
to hear sweeter welcomes and to greet a goodlier company than surround 
our venerated Father to-day, and that heavenly voice, ''Servant of God, 
well done." 

Deacon Lorrain Loornis was chosen to his office Feb. 28, 1812. He 
was born in Torrington Jan. 9, 1764. He became a Christian, as he sup- 
posed, when he was a little more than 18 years of age. I have often 
thought that if I were asked to make a list of the most eminent Christians 
I have ever known, nearly first, if not first, would be the name of Deacon 
Loornis. He is said to have said early to a young friend, "Jesse, the 
world are living on the failings of Christians ; let us starve them to death." 
That was the key-note of his life. For thirty years he was an instructor 
of youth, and my friend, the historian of the town, says he was the only 
district school-master he ever loved. He once taught a school in Albany 
and had occasion to punish a boy, the son of a Dutchman. The father 
came to him in great wrath and threatened to spit in his face. " You can 
if you wish," was the reply, "I can wipe it oil'." He was so near his 
Master that when be was reviled, he reviled not again. His heart was 
69 



542 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

full of love to all men. He furnished, at his own expense, the first stove 
ever put in the old meeting house. Those of us who remember the in- 
tense suffering from cold in that house must bless his memory. It was just 
like him. The only accusation ever brought against him was, he gives 
too much. Blessed is the man of whom a carping world can say noth- 
ing worse. 

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. Deacon Loomis 
sometimes said to his intimate friends that he was just as sure of the com- 
ing of a revival of religion before there were any outward signs of it, as 
in the midst of its glories. It has passed into our current literature how 
Lorrain Loomis, Micajah Hoyt, and Stephen Wade, in a coal cabin on 
our northwestern hills, entered into a solemn covenant to pray for the con- 
version of Lemuel Hurlbut till he should be converted, or he or they 
should pass away from earth. They desired the conversion of Mr. Hurl- 
but because of their high regard for him, and his great influence in the 
community. I do not know that it ever has been told how, when his 
associates had long been dead, and he was more than ninety years of age, 
Deacon Loomis and Mr. Hurlbut met to rejoice together over that for 
which the three had prayed so long. 

I remember well a prayer meeting on a cold winter's night at Squire 
Beebe's. I suppose it must have been in January, 1834. Deacon 
Loomis was present, though not living in town. He had just reached 
the end of his seventieth year. I think it was his birthday. How 
tenderly he spoke of his great unworthiness, of the shortness of his life, 
and his expectation of dying soon. How modestly he spoke of his hopes 
of Heaven ! How meltingly he exhorted us to holy living and prepara- 
tion for death. Yet, he lived after that almost twenty-five years. For 
several years he was steward and accountant at the Foreign Mission 
School at Cornwall, a position of great usefulness. He lost his property 
in middle life, and he worked many months after he was seventy years 
of age, at twelve dollars a month, to get money to pay obligations 
assumed for others long before. I thank God that this earth has been 
consecrated by the lives of such men. Their feet have trodden it ; their 
tears have baptized it. Its air is holy with the perfume of their saintly 
lives. God made good to him his promise to the liberal soul, in abundant 
provision for his old age. He died July 7, 1857, aged ninety-three and a 
half years. " They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
ment, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever 
and ever." 

Benjamin Benedict was chosen deacon in 1812, July 9. He is spoken 
of as nu excellent man. He emigrated early to Coventry, Chenango 
County, N. Y., where he died July 22, 1850, aged 83. 

Levi Piatt was chosen deacon in 181'.', April 30. No two men could 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 543 

well be more unlike in form and temperament than Deacon Loomis and 
Deacon Piatt. Deacon Piatt was gigantic in form, of stern stuff, a 
patriarch, a puritan. Deacon Loomis was slender and loving as a child, 
a very lamb fur gentleness. Yet these men wrought together in most 
loving partnership all the long years of their connection with the church, 
and I do not believe any pastor ever trusted more implicitly in any two 
men than Mr. Marsh, who was the junior of both, trusted these two men. 
They were the Aaron and Hur that stayed the hands of our leader to 
the promised land. 

My most vivid recollections of Deacon Piatt, as a church officer, are 
in the prayer meetings holden in the old school-house south of Ilurlbut's 
store, in the Sabbath intermissions of the summer of 1831. In these 
meetings he prayed, and talked, and wept, as though he believed that men 
must speedily submit to God or be lost in eternal perdition. He did 
believe it. 

Deacon Piatt died August 14, 185G, aged 90 years, eight months, 
having been a member of the church more than seventy years — a vene- 
rable and holy man. "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." 
He was a son-in-law of Deacon Alvord. 

Stephen Wheadon was chosen deacon, May 30, 1823. He was a man 
of strong character, and gave promise of eminent usefulness, but he died 
suddenly December 2, 1824, aged 40, "And devout men carried Stephen 
to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." 

Micajah Hoyt was chosen deacon, December 2, 1825. He was emi- 
nently a man of prayer. He emigrated to Barton, N. Y., where he 
died April 14, 1848, aged 77. 

David Bird was chosen in 1835, and served the church faithfully till 
his removal in 1857. He died in 1863, aged 59 years. 

Allen Blake was chosen in 1835, and served faithfully till his death in 
1850, at the age of 58. 

Of the eleven deacons of this church who have died, three were more 
than ninety years of age, three more were more than eighty-three, two 
more averaged seventy-live, and the whole average is more than seventy- 
five. " Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches 
and honor." 

The living men who have held the office of deacon are Abel S. 
Wetinore, chosen in 1835, Marcus Munsill, chosen in 1858, Elijah F. 
Blake, chosen in 1858, and Isaac A. Bronson, chosen in 18G5. The 
church has had fifteen deacon-. 

Mr. James II. Dill was ordained colleague with Mr. Marsh, August 
26, 1846. Mr. Dill, like all his predecessors, was a graduate of Yale. 
He came here in his youth, and labored earnestly a few years, and was 
dismissed October 2, 1851. He afterward had a successful ministry in 



544 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Spencerport, N. Y., and in Chicago. His name is on that long roll of 
honor which the nation saved, will ever keep hright. He was a chaplain 
in the army, and died in his work. 

After the dismission of Mr. Dill, Rev. John Cunningham preached 
several months, and accepted a call, hut the consociation refused to settle 
him. 

Rev. Ira Pettihone was installed here in Octoher, 1857, and left his 
pastorate in 18G6. Mr. Pettibone is now pastor of the church in West 
Hartford. In his life he has given a good deal of time to the cause of 
education. While here he founded and conducted the Winchester 
Institute. That beautiful building is one of the marks he made here. 
Members of the church gave their money to assist in its erection, und 
others have since given their money to put it into the hands of trustees as 
a perpetual gift to the community. Of these last, Mrs. Jonathan Blake 
and her daughter, Mrs. Mitchell, are worthy of special mention, they 
having given $4,500 for this purpose, which is the largest sum any one 
family has placed in this enterprise. It is now in the care of Colonel 
Ira AY. Pettibone, and if the people of Winchester are wise they will 
cherish it, for besides its incalculable advantages to your children, 
nothing draws a good population like a good school, and there is a grow- 
ing demand for places of education away from the vicious influences of 
our large towns. Seventy-two persons were added to the church here 
during the ministry of Mr. Pettibone. Mrs. Pettibone, whose death 
occurred here April, 1865, was Louisa Welch, of Norfolk. She was an 
early teacher of mine. I have always felt the stimulus of her instruc- 
tions, and had pleasant memories of her. I believe she was universally 
beloved. 

Rev. Wm. M. Gay supplied the place of a pastor for two or three 
years. 

Rev. Arthur Goodenough, the present pastor of the church, was installed 
Dec. 28, 1870. He is a native of Jefferson, N. Y., and a graduate of 
Yale College. 

The church has had five hundred and twenty-three members. If it has 
not grown larger the population has not increased around it. It has given 
largely to other churches, as to the church in Vernon, N. Y., a majority 
of her first members. AVe rejoice that tin; town has steadily increased 
and that other churches strong in numbers and influence, occupy the ground 
where the population is largest. May the Divine life grow in them all. 

The presenl church edifice was raised Aug. 2»i, 1841, and dedicate, I 
June 30, 1842. It has recently been thoroughly repaired and speaks for 
itself. 

Honorable mention should be made of those who supported with a lib- 
eral hand the institutions of religion even while they were not members 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 545 

of the church. Messrs. S. & L. Hurlbut, for a long course of years, paid 
one-quarter of the salary of Mr. Marsh, and supplemented the salary 
with large gifts which they continued as long as they lived. They also 
paid at least one-third of the cost of the present house of worship. The 
late Isaac Bronson and his brothers were liberal supporters of the society 
in the early years, as his children have been in the more recent, and there 
have been many others. 

It is hardly possible to touch anything in the history of the last hundred 
years without dwelling on the changes in the life of the world. Our 
presence here and the journeys we have come are significant of these 
changes. The steamboat, the railway, and the telegraph have made pos- 
sible the wide dispersion of this family, and this pleasant re-union. In 
this hundred years these agencies have come into use, and are the instru- 
ments by which freedom, knowledge, and Christianity are doing the 
mighty work of regenerating the world. 

When the fathers began here they were a part of some feeble colonies 
of Great Britain planted along the Atlantic coast of this wilderness con- 
tinent. We are a part of the mightiest nation on the face of the earth. 
I sneak advisedly when I say the mightiest nation. I do not estimate the 
might of a nation simply by the number of her people, her wealth, or her 
armies. I take in the character of her people and the power of her prin 7 
ciples, and I say that a nation that has a domain from ocean to ocean, and 
from tropic seas to polar ice, capable of sustaining a thousand millions of 
people ; that has spanned a continent with a great highway of the nations, 
bringing, London within forty days of Canton ; that established a system 
of popular education that has become a necessity and an inevitable destiny 
for the civilized world ; that has made chattel shivery henceforth impossi- 
ble anywhere ; that has shaken by the simple power of her principles 
every throne in Europe ; that has made a republic certain in Great Britain 
at no distant day ; that is giving a home under her free institutions to the 
natives of every land, and gathering under her tutelage representatives of 
every nation and sending them forth with her stamp on them to give her 
life to the world — may claim without arrogance to be the mightiest nation 
on the face of the earth. I say that no other nation has so much power 
in the life of this world to-day as these United States of America. 

A hundred years ago and there was but little general education in the 
world, save in these N. E. colonies. Within this century the boundaries 
of knowledge have had a marvelous enlargement. The stars have been 
measured and the mighty movements of the firmament have been discov- 
ered. Matter and life have given up their secrets I ill sometimes it seems 
as though the gates of the mysterious were to swing wide open and reveal 
all their treasures to the vision of man. 

Now, the mightiest slates enforce the education of all their people, the 



546 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

essential equality of all men is seen, and what is known to our highest 
civilization is soon to be known everywhere. 

A hundred years ago despotism prevailed in the world. Chattel slavery, 
with all its abominations, existed under all governments, and the labor and 
life of the people were sacrificed to the aggrandizement and luxury of 
kings and nobles. The young giant of freedom now stalking over the 
earth and shaking thrones was in the birth throes. 

Now slavery is virtually abolished everywhere. The mightiest 
governments are free, and kings hold only a barren scepter. The 
people are rising in their majesty with the rising tides of intelligence to 
their true place. 

A hundred years ago and Christianity was confined within narrow 
limits. Darkness covered the earth, ami gross darkness the people. 
Now the outposts of the church an; in all lands, the Bible is known in 
all human languages, and the onward march of time is pregnant with 
prophetic voice-', saying, "Now is come salvation and strength, and 
the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ." 

To come back to our text. How much have this church, and others 
like it, done in the line of these changes? "Out of Zion the perfection 
of beauty Cod hath sinned." How much have they done for popular 
education? General Garfield, in a speech at William-; College at the 
last commencement, said he was at the Paris Kxpo-ition in 1867, and 
one morning a friend called him out of the building to show him some- 
thing. Going outside he saw a farmer's house, a cottage, framed in our 
west, taken across the water, ami set up there, and beside it a school- 
house, and the crowned king- ami representatives of the nations were 
looking at it. It needed but one thing more to represent the trinity of 
our American life — the home, the church, the school-house. Our fathers 
built their rude homes, i ben the church of God, then the school-house, and 
their children, as they have created new states, have followed their 
example, only often the schoobhouse has come before the church and 
served the double purpose. 

Popular education is an outgrowth and a necessity of our congrega- 
tionism. A democratic church, as well as a democratic state, must have 
an intelligent constituency, and the New England Church inaugurated 
popular ( due ition for the world. 

How much have ties.' churches done for freedom ? A lew weeks since, 
in the lirs: flush of this summer's verdure, I stood in one of those cities of 
our patriot dead that are here and there in the South. It was on the 
bank ol'a running stream, and was well enclosed, with graded driven and 
walks, and more than two thousand graves. A thousand flag- waved 
from the head boards, tin; skies were bright and peaceful, and as the 
procession filed in, marshaled by the colored police of the city, lately 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 547 

slaves, and a colored band playing the dirges, followed by hundreds of 
colored citizens, and the children of the schools singing patriotic songs, 
and scattering with their dusky lingers floral offerings on the graves of 
the heroes ; the scene was both touching and significant. New England 
first lighted the fires of freedom. New England said the virgin soil of 
the continent should be free. The place was holy with the dust of the 
sons and grandsons of New England. New England sent the men and 
women who opened the mysteries of knowledge to these dark souls, from 
whose hands New England bravery had wrenched the manacles. And 
the>e are but the vanguard of a mighty host, redeemed themselves, and 
ministers of redemption to a mighty continent soon to stretch out her 
hands unto God. 

The congregational church, arising out of the fires* of persecution a free 
church, gave type to the civil government — created the Republic. The 
leaven of freedom that was in her beginning is fast leavening our humanity. 
New England saved the Republic in the day of her mortal peril. No 
thoughtful man who was in the Northwest in the great Rebellion could 
fail to see that New England principles vitalized those great states, kept 
them true to loyalty, and sent their armies into the battle fields, over which 
our flag of victory finally wa\ed in triumph. 

How mud) have these churches done for Christianity? There is a 
germ of infidelity in every human heart. "The fool hath said in his 
heart, there is no God." There are two things that are ever alive in the 
world as antidotes to this : the providential government of God and the 
church. When I see one who has spent life in the service of an unseen 
God, trusting in him, when his days of active service are over receiving 
in ways as unexpected and supernatural as though it had dropped from 
heaven, the supply of daily want, I cannot be an intid> 1. Sodom in her 
day, Jerusalem in her day, Rome in her day, Paris in her day, have pro- 
claimed through the centuries the presence in human affairs of an unseen 
almighty and all-avenging God. 

Men may reason as they please. Darwin, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, 
Renan. We who have felt the influence of the ministry of Frederick 
Marsh, and heard Lorrain Loomis and Levi Piatt pray, and seen how 
they lived, and the holy men and women that were around them fifty 
years ago, cannot be infidels. John Randolph said he should have " been 
an infidel hut for the remembrance of the hour when his mother laid her 
hand on his head and taught him to say 'Our Father who art in heaven.' " 
How many of us have felt the same influences. A church with such 
mothers as we had is impregnable against all the assaults of infidelity. 
How much have these (bundles done for missions for the regeneration of 
the world? I know of no spot where this question could be better 
answered than in this hill country of Connecticut. Six miles from this 



548 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

spot, eighty-eight years ago, there was horn a son to the pastor of a sister 
church. Grown to manhood, he became the subject of a remarkable 
religious experience. In one of the most beautiful valleys on the face of 
the earth, among the majestic hills of Northern Berkshire, in sight of one 
of our honored colleges, is a park of twenty acres and a grove and a 
marble monument, marking the spot where that young man gathered his 
companions for prayer, and where one day, when they were sheltered 
from a passing shower by a hay-stack, he first proposed to them to go on 
a mission to the heathen. He stimulated a missionary spirit everywhere. 
Samuel John Mills is known through the earth as the father of that 
mighty missionary movement of modern times which has its home in this 
country. He it was who said to a friend, "You and I are very little 
beings, but we can make our influence felt to the ends of the earth," and 
he did, whether you measure space or time. 

Fifty-two years ago, in sight of this ground, two young men were 
ordained to the missionary work. They were the actors in that mar- 
velous drama of modern times, the creation of a Christian state in those 
volcanic islands in the Pacific, once peopled by savages. Why were 
they ordained lure? Because this was historic ground. Here Mills was 
born. Here was the first auxiliary of the American Board. Here was 
the Foreign Mission School which grew out of the romantic history of 
the landing of Henry Obookiah on our shores. Here was a group of 
pastors who wore fanning the missionary spirit into a flame, who^e 
glorious brightness fills the land. 

The first pastor of this church had a grandson, born just over our 
border, near the spot where the first settler of the town made his home, 
who ended a devoted and brilliant, but brief, life as a missionary in 
Persia. 

Has this church done her part in the mighty changes of the century in 
which her si-ters have had so potent an agency. If she has not. her 
tinial year is not worth celebrating. Samuel J. Mills was not born 
here. The first missionaries to the Sandwich Islands were ordained at 
Goshen. Tin' Foreign Mission School was at Cornwall. I do not know 
that this church has ever .-■• at any of her members to the heathen, though 
Mr. Daniel II. Austin, who was born here, was a missionary to the 
() age Indians, hut I do not believe that any pastor ever did more to 
a missionary spirit among his people than Mr. Marsh. I do not 
believe that any m mber of any of our churches, that did not go or send 
a child to the field, ever did more for missions than Deacon Loomis or 
Deacon Piatt. I know that this church has had many members that 
have been mighty in prayer for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ. 
I know that she has had a great many sowers and reapers in the great 
field of the world. A considerable number of ministers have grown up here 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 549 

for come rom families who have emigrated from here. I mention Rev. 
Noble Everitt of the early days, Rev. David Goodwin, Rev. Eliphaz A. 
Piatt, Rev. George Baldwin, Rev. James R. Coe, of the Episcopal 
Church. 

This church has not been behind in the reformatory movements of 
the age. When Mr. Mar.-h came here he found the usual drinking 
customs, but after the attempt to accept the proffered hospitalities of his 
people for one or two whole days of pastoral visitation, he told them they 
need never more offer him any alcoholic drinks, and when the temper- 
ance reformation began, he and the leading men, and the great body of 
the church, came promptly into it, and there they have remained. 

If the church did not come into the anti-slavery 'movement as soon as 
some others, she was true to freedom and loyalty in our great struggle, 
and gave of her life for the life of the nation. 

I know not how it was with the early pastors of the church, but I 
know that Mr. Marsh always supervised the schools, as he did every 
thing else, thoroughly and well, and the church fostered education. 

We have sent forth a great many teachers of the young. Fifty years 
since there was a quiet, silent young man here, who did a great deal to 
stimulate culture and prepare teachers in all the surrounding country. 
He fired many a young heart with his own love of learning, and sent 
many with his own stamp on them to every corner of the land. Only 
when we fully comprehend that mysterious spiritual thing we call influ- 
ence, which grows broader and deeper, like the rivers as they near the 
sea, and lasts through the centuries as the forests that grow from the 
scattered seed, will it be known what Silas H. McAlpine did for the 
world. The same influences have been at work since, are at work now 
here, and I know of no spot more favorable for the training of the young. 

And what shall I say of the work of the church in these hundred 
years in our sainted ones and in ourselves ? How many struggling with 
imperfection and sin have been made meet for heaven? How many 
have crowned a Christian living with a Christian dying? This air seems 
to me to be astir with the breath of lives that have been transferred to 
immortal scenes, and yet are immortal here. Our fathers and mothers, 
though dead, yet speak. Our dead ! Their life was far away from the 
scenes of excitement that consume us. Engaged in the same round of 
toil day by day, and year by year, they found their pleasure in their 
religious life. The Sabbath was to them a day of benedictions. They 
delighted in prayer. From youth to hoary age they walked with God, 
and when they came to die, though we saw it not, they saw in the 
golden sunlight the chariot and horses of fire, and the cloud of glory on 
which the spirit went up to its home. 

We who know something what we owe to a mother's prayers, and who 
70 



550 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

cherish her memory in our heart of hearts, know that she received the 
secret of her power and drew the inspiration of her life in the church. 
If there is a God, Infinite, Almighty, and full of love, He has been in the 
church. If there is a home of goodness, glorious above all description, 
she has been furnishing residents for it. If you would measure her work 
you must measure eternity. If you would compute her work you must 
compute the bliss of heaven. 

Let our dead, whom the years one by one have been carrying away lo 
their rest, from their high seats as they wait in their songs to greet us to- 
day, tell what the church has done. Let the children and grandchildren 
of the church scattered over the earth, working for our humanity, give in 
their testimony. Let the unfolding future, the better ages that are com- 
ing, reveal it. We commit the question to that eternity which alone can 
show the boundless wealth of good there is in a true church of the living 
Godl 

How shall we greet the new century of our organized life ? Will it 
see as many changes as the buried years ? Will it see as many holy lives 
and as many triumphant deaths as the old ? Will it send forth as many 
sons and daughters to help in the final battles and final victories of truth 
and righteousness in the world ? There have been times when it has 
seemed that the new agencies would depopulate the hills, and cause some 
of these old churches to become extinct. Now I have a fancy that the 
same agencies, bringing these hills with their health-bearing breezes 
and their summer beauty near the great centers of life, may soon repop- 
ulate them, covering them with new homes of beauty and a better culture, 
making them radiant with new life. May it be as good as the old. and 
better ! The clnuvh, fragrant with the memory of our sainted ones, en- 
shrined in the perpetual life of those who have entered into rest, will live 
and God will live in her. The coming years will take us from this earthly 
scene. May they take us to the departed, the general assembly and 
church of the first born ! 

Let us be glad and rejoice! This world has been waiting long for its 
king. He who died once is to reign forever, and the mightiest changes are 
to go on till He comes. The children (if mm are not always to sit in 
the region and shadow of death. Poverty, enforced and unrecpiited toil, 
ignorance and vice, pestilence and famine, are not to curse the earth for- 
ever. Not forever are the nations to seek glory in the destruction of each 
other. Not forever shall the earth groan beneath the battle of the war- 
rior with confused noise and garments rolled in blood. 

Down the dark future, through long generations, 

The echoing .sounds grow fainter and then cease; 
And like a bell with solemn sweet vibrations, 
I hear onec more the voice of Christ say peace. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 551 

Peace ! and no longer from its brazen portals, 
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies, 
But beautiful as songs of the Immortals 
The holy melodies of love arise. 

The clioir then sang the hymn, " Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing," &c. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY THERON BRONSON, Esq., 
PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — In assuming the duties assigned me I 
have but a word to say. 

I rejoice at seeing so many familiar faces before me of half a century 
ago. It calls to mind most vividly many pleasing scenes of our early 
childhood ; and I rejoice at the privilege of tendering to you to-day a 
most joyous welcome. 

"Welcome in our hearts ; welcome to our homes ; enjoy wit!; us this 
social gathering. And to all the friends who this day honor us with your 
presence, we bid you a hearty welcome ; doubly welcome to the humble 
entertainment which it is our privilege to offer you. 

And to my venerable friend on my right (Deacon Ira Hills), from the 
State of New York, in behalf of our Reverend Father (Rev. Frederick 
Marsh), permit me, sir, to extend to you a most joyous greeting; and to 
you, venerable fathers, whose years reach back almost to the period we 
this day commemorate, who, under a kind Providence, have stood for so 
long a period of years as beacon lights, thus uniting the past with the 
present — and may we not hope with the future, by the divine permission, 
to the completion of a full century — may your last days be your best days ; 
and as your setting sun shall wane, may your remaining days be as calna, 
as peaceful, and as joyous as your former ones have been prosperous and 
victorious; and beyond life's pilgrimage may a glorious immortality be 
yours. 

And now to the young before me: — Permit me to ask where are the 
fathers and the mothers, that little band of fourteen, for the commemora- 
tion of whose noble acts of a hundred years ago we are this day assembled ? 
For an answer, go to yonder grave-yard ; see there inscribed the names 
of that immortal band, upon the most unpretending, humble tablets, and 
that apparently almost by nature's band. And the question recurs to us, 
where, at the next centennial, will be every person lure assembled to-day? 
The history of our fathers but too plainly answers. We stand here to-day 
as did our fathers, occupying the front ranks in the history of the next 
century. Let me say to these youth, remember that little band; emulate 
their example ; cherish their memory ; live lives devoted to usefulness, 



552 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

that unborn generations, whose privilege it shall be to celebrate the next 
centennial, shall rise up and call you blessed. I doubt not the recollec- 
tions of to-day will be with you until these hearts shall cease to beat. 

The formal exercises of the forenoon were then closed with a benedic- 
tion by Rev. Frederick Marsh, as follows : May the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy 
Spirit, be and abide with us now and forever, Amen. 

A procession was then formed to visit the locality of the first church* 
and after returning to the scene of the previous exercises, upon the green 
in front of the church, a most bountiful collation was partaken, the divine 
blessing having been first invoked by Rev. Joseph Eldridge, D. D., of 

Norfolk : 

Invocation. 

Our Father in Heaven, we thank Thee for Thy providential government 
over the world and for the establishment and preservation of Thy church 
among men. We thank Thee that Thou didst extend Thy care over those 
that came to this land and those who have descended from them. We 
thank Thee for all Thy favor to those who, one hundred years ago, dwelt 
here ; and for all the prosperity and all the blessings conferred upon them 
and their descendants, and that in circumstances of so much favor we may 
meet on this beautiful day; and that this day we have been permitted to 
commemorate their history and derive lessons from their experience and 
their service, and enter into the blessings that, through Thy grace, they 
have transmitted to us. We thank Thee for all the blessings of the past 
and of this occasion. May we deliver the blessings granted to us unim- 
paired to those who shall come after us, so that when a hundred years 
have passed away, our descendants may look back towards us as we now 
look towards those who dwelt here a hundred years ago; through Jesus 
Christ our Redeemer, Amen. 

The collation occupied nearly an hour, and was everywhere praised for 
its richness and abundance. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 

The assembly having been called to order by the President <>(' the Day. 
Rev. Samuel T. Seelye, I). D., of Easthampton, Mass., was introduced, 
who spoke briefly aa follows: 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 553 

ADDRESS OF Rev. SAMUEL T. SEELYE, D.D., of Easfhampton, Mass. 

Mr President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : — I have had the pleasure of looking 
over your programme, and I see you have a very large and rich entertainment provided 
for the afternoon. I will not, therefore, venture to trespass upon your time, allotted 
to those who have specially prepared themselves to entertain you. But it requires an 
effort on this occasion, with so much to inspire one, not to indulge in the luxury of 
making a speech for I full}' enter into sympathy with this occasion, and am glad to 
sec Old Winchester to-day in all her glory. As I was for twenty-five years the minis- 
ter in an adjoining town, and used to come here occasionally to see you, I am glad to 
find so many here to-day whom I did not expect to sec. High as my opinion was of 
the good people of Winchester, I must say I did not know you could do as well as you 
have done to-day ; and I am glad to be here. I can say this with special unction and 
force after the grand collation you have provided. And if everybody, and more too, 
is not satisfied, it is not tho fault of the good people of Winchester ; and what the 
speakers are to do after having eaten so much just now, I do not know. 

While I rejoice to be here on this grand occasion, and feel the inspiration which stirs 
all your hearts, I am especially glad to see here my honored Father Marsh ; and in fact 
I came to Winchester expressly to see him and take him by the hand. I never shall 
forget him ; for although my relations with my brethren with whom I associated in 
Litchfield county were always pleasant and profitable, no man did so much for my good, 
by his example and teaching, and the influence which I felt coming from him, as 
Father Marsh. I shall never forget his kindness at my examination, when theological 
controversies were more in vogue than to-day, and how Father Marsh poured oil upon 
the waters ; and he has always been a peace-maker, not given to strife. I have hon- 
ored him for the way in which he has lived, for the example he has set his brethren 
in the ministry ; and I am sorry, for one, that I have come so far short. But that is 
not his fault; his light has been shining steadily all the time. 

One thing I know of him that perhaps many of you do not, and which has been of 
great service to me. You know what Father Marsh's estate has been ; how many 
acres of land; how large an income he has had. He said to me years ago, that not- 
withstanding his wants might be ever so pressing, he always had the Lord's drawer 
in which was something, though not very much, which he consecrated to the Lord, and 
which he used for benevolent purposes. He said that more than twenty years ago. 
That has remained in my heart and influenced me as much as any one thing I ever 
heard. And I bless God for that example, and for that evidence of the consecration 
of property and all that he had to God and His service. And I have tried to do my 
duty better and be more liberal and more generous, because of my reverend father. 

But Father Marsh is not perfect. There was one thing that I heard long ago that 
was a comfort, one thing that showed he had our weak, human nature ; and to a man 
who is as great a sinner as I am, that is a comfort. But I never heard that Father 
Marsh came short and came to a dead halt, and lo^t his faith in his Christian 
principles but once. A good lady in Wolcottville related this, and said she never knew 
but one bad thing of Father Marsh; that on one occasion, when his good wife pre- 
sented him with a pair of twins, the good man was overcome. (Laughter.) That was 
the only time when his faith was staggered. (Renewed laughter.) But that did not 
last long: he soon got over that. I told the lady, my informant, that probably the 
tears shed, if any, were tears of joy, because, the blessings God sent him were so much 
more abundant than he expected. (Continued laughter.) 

I could say much more to show my appreciation of Father Marsh, but I can simply 
express the hope that God may keep him to his hundredth year and more to bless us 
and our children, if we are so fortunate as to have children. (Applause). 



554 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



ADDRESS BY REV. ARTHUR GOODENOUGH. 

1 1 is thought proper that I should say a few words on this occasion, not because it 
was thought I have anything to say to this audience that may be especially interesting, 
but to show that the church in Winchester has ;i pastor, and I come forward on this 
occasion to make that announcement. 

Our chairman has already extended to you a cordial welcome here, and in the 
words that he has used I have no doubt he expressed the sentiments of this entire 
community. I can but repeat that we are glad to see you here today, that we sin- 
cerely hope that nothing has occurred or will occur to mar the joy of this occasion. 

As we recall the events of our local history for the past hundred years, we value 
that history not alone for the fathers' sake, not alone for the sacred influence which 
it throws around our homes to-day, we value it for the bond by which it unites so 
many loving he rts, separated so far and wide, with a common love of these old 
memories. The fact that I, a stranger to most of you, assume to welcome you on 
this occasion, shows to many of you undoubtedly that your childhood's home is not 
in all respects what you once knew it; that changes are taking place. I myself have 
known something of the sadness that comes from a consciousness of a past, that will 
not and cannot join hands with the present, and I sincerely hope that none of you will 
experience changes to-day that will cause sadness as you visit these old familiar 
places. Surely the rocks, and the bills, and lakes are ready to welcome you with a 
glad smile of recognition, and if many well known faces have passed away, and others 
have changed almost beyond the power of recognition, yet we believe that the spirit 
of the elder times has not departed, even the spirit of the fathers. The spirit that 
wrought in and with the fathers abides to-day where they dwelt, and will not Ictus 
forget them, but pointing to their_ foot-marks will say to generations yet unborn, 
"This is tin' way, walk ye in it." 

And now that myself and others enter into your places, we do not come so much to 
be agents of change as we come to learn the les.-ons which these grand hills, with 
their hallowed memories, may teach, and to enter into possession of the influences 
which the lives of good men and women in the past have established here. 

It is not right thai I should intrude myself too long upon your attention, or inter- 
rupt the greetings more appropriate to tins occasion. We have the evidence before 
us, not merely in historical statements of what has been here, but in the living 
examples, in the institutions, the church, the schools, the homes, and the scenes which 
the Great Creator calls upon Ud to admire, that these have not been in vain. Poets 
are born here ; they learn to think here. They may go away from us to the crowded 
city, to the din and hum of busy life; but they are born here. Such men cannot be 
born in the great Babylons, and we are thankful that they delight to return to us and 
lay their garland- of triumph before our feet. I do not intend to try to prove it by 
any arguments of mine, but we shall piovc it in a better way, ami I shall now intro- 
duce to you the poet of the day, Dr. W. J. Wctmore. But I would not have you 
think we bring forward all our poets to-day. Those of you who know the place 
know something of what we can do in this direction. I know it was said of an old 
Greek who had a house to dispose of, that since he could not carry around the house 
to .-how he took a brick of the same material as that with which the house was con- 
structed as a specimen, ami desired the people to look at it. We bring you now our 
chosen poet, only as .1 specimen brick. (Langhter ami applau 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 555 



POEM BY WM. J. WETMORE, M. 1)., New York City. 

Kindred and friends, why are we met together 
"Within tin's tent this lovely summer weather? 
Why gather here on this delightful day, 
To pass a few reflective hums away? 
'Tis not to boast of martial conquest here, 
Bought at the price of blood that costs so dear, 
But 'tis the song of peace that floats around, 
And where we stand seems consecrated ground. 
Here did our fathers their first altar raise, 
Where hearts sincere could join in prayer and praise; 
Here they first met, their pious zeal to show, 
Their trust in God a hundred years ago. 

A hundred years ago ! from thence we date 
The birth of this old town, so fixed by fate, 
When law and order over chaos reigned, 
And with increasing age new vigor gained. 
Young hearts, strong arms, here strove with fresh delight, 
When rising beauties cheered the welcome sight ; 
Bright dwellings rose to glad the traveler's way, 
Though Winter frowned, or smiled the flowery May. 

A hundred years ago ! like swallows on the wing 
Come floating back loved scenes of boyhood's Spring ; 
And forms and faces seem to gather here, 
Long since departed, but forever dear ; 
Here on these rugged hills, with artless grace, 
Our fathers lived and toiled, a sturdy race; 
They tilled the soil so rough in its repose, 
And made the fields to blossom like the rose. 
Among the many well-tilled farms I see, " 
With rock and hillside, meadow, brook, and tree; 
One with its fond associations well I know, 
My grandsiro's home a hundred years ago : 
Though somewhat changed with steady lapse of time, 
'Tis much the same as when in early prime ; 
The old domain, some buildings yet the same, 
And dearer still, my old ancestral name. 
These still remain a pleasure and a joy, 
And make me almost feel again a boy ; 
These add a priceless value to the place 
Of one's own birth, his kindred and his race. 

The church our fathers reared beneath the hill, 
The first, though humble, had its comforts still : 
From summer's heat and winter's piercing cold, 
It shielded both the shepherd and his fold : 
And though the tempest scowled along the sky, 
O'er those true hearts the storm swept harmless by: 
But soon that little church proved far too small, 



556 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

To hold the crowd within its narrow hall, 

Winn farther north a better site was found, 

To rear a shrine where faith might more abound: 

Our ancient fathers planned with cunning skill, 

Another church with zealous hands and will, 

When soon a beauteous temple rose to vi( w, 

Where faith might light her vestal flame anew: 

There oft the faithful worshipers repaired, 

And all its blessings, all its comforts shared. 

The saintly Knapp there ministered awhile, 

And Bogue with pleasant voice and winning smile; 

Then Marsh new courage, new existence gave 

To fainting hearts, and made the thoughtless grave. 

To him a debt of gratitude I owe, 

For favors past, for kindness long ago : 

With him I studied first the poet's art, 

When Virgil's lines I scanned and learned by heart; 

And as the days sped happily along, 

I loved the teacher and the poet's song. 

But time rolls on and other change takes place, 
That church is gone, and strange seems every face; 
The dear old congregation is no more, 
The sweet old songs that pleased so well are o'er; 
And those we knew and met from day to day, 
Are now in other lands far, far away, 
Or down on Burial Hill, cold, slumbering clay! 
Sleep on, beloved dust! till that blest morn arise, 
To waft your souls, redeemed, beyond the skies : 
Where kindred spirits in reunion sweet, 
In bliss immortal shall each other greet: 
May none be lost, but all through grace and love, 
Meet their kind Father God, in realms above ! 



But, dear old town ! you've had your joys and cares, 
Your men severe, your wit that never spares : 
And as we feared the one, we loved the other, 
And laughed to hear their jokes of one another. 
One man I knew, whose heart seemed e'er inclined 
To call men fools or ignorantly blind, 
Who dared to say this globe did not stand still, 
And sun and moon rolled through the sky at will; 
For, if the world turned over, on bis head 
He sure must stand or tumble out of bed : 
Long Lake, alas! its oozy bed must leave, 
And thirsty turtles for lost waters grieve; 
The perch and pickerel mourn the absent flood, 
And eels : uid bullheads flounder in the mud, 
But this was only one particular Cask, 
The last, if 1 mistake not, of hi> race. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 557 

Another, skilled in mythologic lore, 
Brought spirits forth at will, from Stygean shore; 
Old Pluto's realms he studied well, by heart, 
And knew each god and goddess on the chart; 
And while he read and learned their wondrous power, 
He sought the graces in their native bower; 
But oft like Orpheus mourned with unfeigned woe, 
His fair Eurydice in shades below. 
The planets, too, that glittered in the sky, 
Their names he called as each one met his eye: 
And in their course astrology sublime 
Rang on his heart its planetary chime. 
His home was humble, but his heart sincere, 
And what he lacked in wealth made up in cheer: 
Indeed, the Dugway would have been forgot, 
But Alvord's name immortalized the spot. 

O'er these old hills my footsteps oft have strayed, 
Where I, with youthful friends, delighted played; 
Their names on memory's tablet brightly shine, 
And fleeting time but makes them more divine: 
Oh Bcebe ! how I loved your generous heart, 
Devoid of guile or hypocritic art : 
But ever true and faithful to defend 
Prom envy's spite misfortune or a friend. 
And other names I dearly, fondly trace, 
With joy recall each pleasant, smiling face ; 
The Blakes, the Hubbells, and the Coits appear, 
With Hurlbuts, Marshes, and McAlpines dear; 
Wade, Nash, and Bronson in our circle shine, 
While Piatt and Hoyt to sanctity incline; 
Chase, Goodwin, Murray put the blues to flight, 
While Hills and Benedict gave fresh delight ; 
Miner and Clarke, as ancient dates will show, 
Here pitched their tents a hundred years ago. 
Everitt and Brooks in youth we often met, 
Nor can we ancient Chamberlain forget! 
Who built his home upon the coldest hill, — 
(I wonder if that old house stands there still !) 
Andrews and Loomis, kindly and sincere, 
Like Hatch and Adams, left their impress here; 
Humphrey and Riggs, both noblemen and peers, 
Their names shall live along the flight of years. 
But why recall the varied names of old, 
Their life's career is briefly, quickly told; 
Stern in their duty — honesty their pride, 
They lived respected, and lamented died. 
These were the good old times, when virtue shone. 
And men bad merits honestly their own; 
Though Joel Beach and Lent Mott.wakc a smile, 
Blue street without them would been bluer still: 



71 



558 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

So many a visage with expression droll, 

Provokes a smile we scarcely can control : 

Even now wc sec them dance before the eyes, 

A motley crowd of every form and guise: 

The Prestons, Jacklins, Ellwells now appear, 

With Gurdon Hoot, the pundit and the seer; 

While Church and Tucker gave peculiar grace 

To every spot where'er they showed their face: 

Around the Little Pond the chattering jays 

Made Rattling Valley vocal with their lays; 

While Beckley whistled as he trudged along, 

And charmed the wood nymphs with his rustic song. 

Put let us not forget one hero brave, 

Who fought and bled, his country's life to save; 

J lis name was Leach — his fame wc all well know 

As warlike scars he proudly loved to show : 

Gained, as he said, on bloody fields of strife, 

Where many times he died — then came to life, 

To fight again till legions ran away, 

And left him victor, hero of the day : 

Put spare the muse — this record nobly won, 

Was blasting rocks from morn till set of sun ; 

Blown out of wells and hurled from many a rock, 

He fell, at last, reduced by nature's shock: 

Brave soldier, let him rest, life's toils are o'er, 

He'll blast out rocks, and battles fight no more. 



Put what a change! few spiiits yet remain, 
Few living links in memory's golden chain ; 
Loved scenes and places change as time rolls on, 
Men tread life's stage, the actors soon are gone; 
Rut here again they pass in swift review, 
And smiles and tears alternate rise anew: 
And though again these scenes theatric glow, 
Time's curtain soon will fall on all below, 
Death soon will bring life's drama to a close, 
The final exit to earth's joys and woes. 
Change comes to every circle here on earth, 
And fond affection mourns departed worth; 
That dear old home so cherished in my youth, 
Still calls me back in tenderness and truth : 
For there my father, mother lived and died, — 
They watched my youth with all a parent's pride : 
But now the town to me deserted serin-, 
And pleasures past appear but idle dreams. 
My playmates scattered, once a numerous band, 
While here, returned, almost alone I stand, 
Reviewing days and years forever past, 
Too bright for earth, too beautiful to last. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 559 

Life is a dream, the story of a day, 
A flower tint blooms to perish and decay, 
But as our friendship on love's altar hums, 
Youth with its pictured memories returns: 
And as we view each well-remembered place, 
We see reflected many a welcome face, 
That brings up joys and pleasures once so dear, 
That had remained forgotten many a year. 

The Lake where summer days I loved to float 
With friends delighted in our uncouth boat, 
I now recall, while youth and pleasure beam, 
The brightest jewels in a poet's dream. 
O, lovely lake! no fairer waters shine, 
No wave reflects a brighter sheen than thine ; 
No other lake; a purer wave can show, 
No brighter skies above their waters glow. 
Although unsung, still round thy rocky shore, 
Those old-time songs seem sounding evermore: 
On every breeze they fondly, sweetly swell, 
The dear old songs we loved in youth so well ; 
They tell of days departed, hopes and tears, 
That floated oft' with swiftly fleeting years ; 
But now return on echo's airy wing, 
Like Heaven's own doves that bring perennial Spring. 
The heart seems touched as by some magic spell, 
A pensive charm that makes the bosom swell 
With fond emotion as those scenes appear 
With spirits of the past now gathered here; 
Not e'en the gondolettas of Italian seas 
Charm with a cadence half so sweet as these. 
They 're deathless as the music of thy waves, 
That seems to rise from out thy hidden caves; 
Far down beneath the watery depths below, 
Where Naiads dwell and glittering jewels glow, 
Where elfins gather — then at evening glide, 
In songs and dances o'er thy rippling tide. 

Turn from this picture in antique repose, 
Another still upon the canvass glows ; 
O ! Winsted, 'tis of thee I fondly sing, 
And to thy shrine my humble offering bring; 
A few short years have scarcely rolled away, 
Since dwellings plain along Mad River lay; 
A humble village one would scarcely note, 
A hamlet, far from busy life remote; 
But now a city rears its strength so great, 
It wields a telling power throughout the State; 
There toil and labor their best trophies bring, 
While listening ears hear numerous anvils ring; 
Sloth cannot find a single footdiold there, 
But every soul its bounteous wealth can share ; 



560 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Though mountains darkly frown on either side, 

And brawling streamlets through the meadows glide ; 

There strength and beauty hand in hand repair, 

And each their several burdens freely hear. 

The church with open doors invites to peace, 

And bids our worldly cares and sorrows cease; 

There law in justice's scales impartial weighs 

The felon's crimes — the penalty he pays; 

And to the mind diseased or body frail, 

There Eseulapean skill should never fail. 

The Press, that source of intellectual light, 

The news of nations spreads before the sight ; 

It comes from North and South, from East and West, 

The " Winsted Herald" proves a welcome guest; 

Such, such is Winsted now, and still apace, 

It grows and thrives in every art and grace: 

Its schools well taught, its teachers full of zeal, 

Fit men for business and the public weal; 

Indeed, in every part, on every hand, 

It seems the smiling Auburn of our land. 

Who cannot call to mind the crazy mill, 
Hard by Long Lake that overtopped the hill ; 
Where grain was taken and where grists were ground, 
And with revolving wheels the jest went round? 
There Skinner reigned, the genius of the place, 
And honest merit marked his genial fare; 
Down that steep hill I've journeyed many a time, 
And stopped to hear the distant belfrey's chime. 
I scarcely dreamed that at some distant day, 
The men so oft I met could pass away, 
So noble, generous, and so good were they. 
That Rockwell, Hinsdale, Wakefield, Boyd, and Coe, 
Could join the army of a hundred years ago, 
But still those old and honored names remain, 
To show those pioneers lived not in vain. 

But Winchester, thou'rt like a parent old, 
Whose strength has failed, whose heart seems dull and cold; 
Who grieves that sturdy manhood cannot last, 
And now sits mourning over glories past. 

But such is life — in youth we're filled with mirth 
And Bcarcelv feel how much our being's worth: 
But time rolls on — old landmarks pass away, 
And joys, like short-lived blossoms, soon decay; 
We could not dream in youth it could be so, 
Of change so great since fifty years ago ; 
But when around these dear old hills I ro;im, 
I stop and ask — " Where is my dear old home ' " 
The pleasant faces that I used to n 
And talk and chat in accents fondly sweet; 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 561 

They're gone forever — every well-known face, 

And desolation marks each favorite place; . • 

Still, few I greet, as friends I knew of yore, 

But seldom seen, — perhaps to see no more! 

But when our days are ended here below, 

And eyes that shone have lost their cheerful glow; 

Though through life's struggle souls seem tempest-tost, 

May all a haven reach, no spirit lost; 

But all redeemed, and through a Savior's love, 

Meet wiih our dearest friends in realms above; 

Where every heart a record pure can show, 

To join our fathers of a hundred years ago ; 

And when another hundred years shall glide, 

Down time's swift current, time's returnle-s tide, 

And other lips shall talk of dear ones fled. 

Oh ! may they pay one tribute to the dead : 

Breathe oce short prayer for those who've gone before, 

And now lie sleeping on death's silent shore : 

Remember those in life from far and near, 

The friends and kindred loved now gathered here; 

And while our hearts with grateful memory's swell, 

To one and all I bid a kind farewell. 

The reading of the poem was followed by singing by the choir, " Blow 
ye the trumpet, blow," &c. 

Rev. Artiiuu Goodexough. — We have b"cn talking a good deal about ours •Ives 
to-day. I suppose it is proper for the most modest people to be guilty once in a while 
of a little glorification of themselves. I have not heard anything about our family to- 
day. But in the changes of these hundred years we have had a little daughter ; at 
least she seems to be a little daughter, no.v growing up and settled down in a little 
obscure valley, out of the wa , in a place we call Winsted. After being prosperous 
there a little while she had another daughter, that seems to be coming up a lively sort 
of a girl, and has come and settled a little nearer to her old grandmother. We think 
they are rather promising girls, and we want to give them a chance to talk a little 
while now. They cannot tell much; they have not lived long enough. Perhaps they 
think they know almost as much as this grandmother. But I hope they will be 
wiser, and urow in grace. But we will not talk much about them; they are able to 
speak for themselves. 

RESPONSE BY DEACON ELIAS E OILMAN, of the First Congregational 

Church, Winsted 

As allusion has been made by the last speaker to having a daughter residing in an 
adjacent valley, and as the pastor of the church residing in that village is absent for 
his vacation, it becomes me, as senior deacon of that church, to respond. 

I am happy, in behali of that church, to return our thanks to the parent church for 
the kindness and sympathy which they have this day and ever before exhibited 
towards that daught r, planted in that "obscure" village. But I. will just s y that 
the church formed from thi- parent stuck was organized in 1784, as the records show. 

The first member was John Balcom, senior. Eight hundred and thirty-six | 16) 
additions have been made to the church. At the present time there are ahout one 
hundred and eighty (180) members belonging to it. And we think, as young people are 



562 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

apt to think at the present day, that our grandsires did not know but a little; hut still 
we look upon the parent church with interest and affection, and think they are what 
they have always manifested themselves towards us, our faithful friends, and when 
Father Marsh comes over to speak to us we hear him with rejoicing hearts, and we 
look hack to-day with thankfulness that he has been spared so Long, and is now per- 
mitted to participate in this centennial celebration. If our church is spared to see its 
hundredth year, we hope Father Marsh may also be spared to celebrate it with us. 

RESPONSE BY REV. CHARLES WETflERBY, Pastor of the Second 
Congregational Church, West Winsted. 

I was married to this granddaughter of this church some live years ago, and she 
has made me on the whole, with a little trouble now and then, a pretty good wife. 
I have passed a great many pleasant days with her, and hope to a great many more. 
But, as the representative of the Second Congregational Church in Winsted, I come 
here before this grandmother to stand before this church that has carried my own in 
her heart's love, with something of the feeling of the college boy when returning from 
college days and college scenes, he comes to the old farmhouse and homestead. As I 
look upon the brain and brawn that have given strength and nerve and energy to the 
boy, so do I feel that the virtue, and power, and strength of the Winsted Churches is 
the result of the, culture, influence, and power that has been bestowed upon them from 
these old hills. 

I come here to the grandmother church to preach once in a while, and as I listen to 
her praises to-day, and have done before, I feel that there is a great power in these old 
churches; their influence has been a great power. And we send back greetings from 
Winsted to this old church on the bill for the piety she has endeavored to stamp upon 
the heart of her descendants. We send back greetings to the old church for the loving 
care with which she has watched over our tender years ; we send hack greetings for all 
the New England purity anil New England principle that she has sent out all over the 
land. I have seen men h re to day from the west, from New York, and from niany 
places abroad. I have taken hold of the hands of those who have passed from you 
and taken up their abode in far off states, and they come back here, and 1 see a- 1 
look in your faces that the faces of the ladies are all beautiful, and those of the men 
all full of strength and power, and the recOllecti >n crowds upon me that such as these 
have planted New England institutions, and the New England churches, and I am 
thankful to God, who cares for all and watches over all, that he has reared up here on 
these hills such a power and such an influence to go abroad into all the land. 

I suppose it is true, as t lie speaker who introduced us said, that the grandmother 
thinks she knows a little more than we do who live in the humble valley. She has 
reason to think so, for in the first place she i- up the highest in the world ; I think she 
is eight or nine hundred feet above US, and that is a great deal we find when we come 
up here to pay her a visit. I know a little boy who stood up by the side of his father 
to measure his height, and he said, " Papa, I shall be bigger than you are by and 
bye." But we never expect, grandmother, that we shall he able to lift ourselves up to 
be high as you are. You are nine hundred feet above us, and you always will be. 
(Laughter). 

I was thinking this morning, as I list* ned to that excellent address, how much of 
the history <>f these towns never will be told After all the eloquent account we bad 
to-day, the real Struggles, the real triumphs, and real conquests of the fathers ami 
tin' mothers who planted themselves a hundred years ago along these hills will never 
be told. Hut when tho men came from Hartford to settle Winehester, and when 
the men from WinchesHf went forth to settle other places, they all carried the church 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 5G3 

and the school with them; they carried sobriety of character, temperance, a sabbath- 
keeping spirit, a home spirit, a law-abiding i-pirit; they carried a large-hearted, sanc- 
tified spirit wherever they went. When we hear about new settlements in the west 
now, we expect to hear a good deal about whiskey saloons, about riotous proceedings 
generally, about western roughness; a great deal about law-breaking, and a great deal 
about those activities and sentiments that are not brought under the restraint of 
principle and duty. And the question by contrast comes back, why do we not expect 
to hear of such things in the old New England settlements ? It is because every New 
England town, when it planted itself on these high hills, where the free air is playing 
ever, and where the sun is shining brightly ever, planted also the church; and the 
sound of the sabbath bell, the sabbath song, and sabbath prayer went forth, reminding 
men of immortality. 

Oh, friends, le us thank God to-day, on this centennial occasion, for the fathers' 
prayers, the fathers' faith, and the lathers' hope ; and God grant that the churches you 
have planted down in the valley of Winsted, down when' the streams are flowing, and 
where the workmen are so busy ; where the sound of the hammer is heard all day 
long. Oh, may God grant that as those churches grow strong — as they are growing 
stroll:; in numbers — they shall have all the love, all the purity, all that moral power, 
and all that sublime devotion to principle and duty which sustained the fathers when 
they planted, on this free New England soil, " a church without a bishop, and a state 
without a king," but a land governed by God. 

Music by the band. 

Rev. Joseph Eldridgic, D.D., of Norfolk, was then introduced, 
and spoke substantially as follows : — 

ADDRESS OF REV. JOSEPH ELDRIDGE, D.D. 

Mr. President, I should not presume to appear before such an audience as this 
without more preparation than it has been in my power to make, were not the circum- 
stances such as they are. I arrived home last evening, and received a notice of this 
meeting, and found my name down on the programme. Rut I am very happy to 
learn that it his been removed. Still, 1 have been called upon to say something, and 
I present myself before you, somewhat as the pastor of this church said he did, merely 
to go through with the motions of appearing before you. 

If I recollect what the programme calls for, I am to speak somewhat in reference to 
the pastors of this church. My memory does not go back of the ministry of our 
venerable father, whose presence cheers us this day. Forty years ago, the 25th of 
next April, was the day on which I first saw Reverend Frederick Marsh. He was 
then present, and took part in my examination, and in my ordination and installation 
over the parish where I have remained since that day. And, perhaps, as my recollec- 
tion goes back to this period, it might be interesting for you to know something about 
the ministers at that time in this region, and the state of feeling that existed during 
that period on various subjects. 

We are sometimes disposed, and especially men who have reached my time of life, 
to look back and think that every thing that is past is preferable to any thing now in 
existence. There was a state of things just about that time, in reference to points 
of doctrine, that was exceedingly exciting. It was in the midst of one of the most 
bitter theological controversies that has existed in this state when I was settled. And 
after my settlement, when ministers met for the purpose of examining a candidate, the 
great point was to ascertain not how much lie knew on subjects in general, but what 
were his particular ideas on special points which were then in discussion, aud as Mr. 



564 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Marsh comes in somewhat in that matter in a particular way that will strike you as 
an illustration of the state of feeling, I will relate an anecdote in regard to an event in 
which I took a part. 

At that time it was not unfrcquent that ministers had what they called Four Days 
Meetings, during which they invited the n ighboring clergymi n to assist them, as the 
case might seem to require. One of the ministers in one of these churches had had 
such a scries of meetings on a certain occasion, and invited me to come and preach a 
sermon. It was in the spring of the year, and the mud was very deep, and I was a 
little late in reaching the place. I was to he there to preach in the afternoon. When 
I reached the chinch, the exercises of a preliminary nature had been pone through 
with, and the clergyman was just about to give out the hymn before the sermon, so 
that I had only an i pportunity of showing him what sermons I had, of mentioning 
their texts, and giving a sort of statement of the points in each of them. I asked him, 
knowing as he did the state of the congregation, to mention that which he thought 
would he most appropriate. Just at that time the door opened, and our reverend 
friend, Mr. Marsh, entered, and walked, in his meek, humble way up the aisle, and 
took his scat in one of the pews. Then the clergyman said to me, selecting a parti- 
cular sermon, "preach that; that will cut up Brother Marsh." (Laughter J. That 
man twisted up his Taylorism so strongly that it fairly kinked. 

On another occasion — to show you to what extremes he had carried his views — I 
had been with him two days, preaching in a parish near by, and it so happened that 
he was to preach the final sermon. It was one of those parishes that did not entirely 
sympathise with him in his peculiar ideas on the subjects then in controversy. But 
the pastor of that church was a magnanimous man, and although he attached some 
importance to these points of difference, he still was willing to have his brethren 
around him supply his place occasionally. There was some feeling in the congrega- 
tion, as the result of the two days' service which we had previously had. My hrother, 
who was my colleague, and was to preach the last sermon, chose for his text, "Make 
yourselves a new heart," and his doctrine was, the duty of man to regenerate himself, 
a result that could only he applied to those who arc self-made. Though the thoughts 
presented were to a certain extent true, yet the id a of a man regenerating himself 
could apply only to the man who could make himself. I bring up these eases to show 
the extremes to which the feelings wire carried at that time. Happily, I think, 
without any relinquishment of sound views on that and kindred topics, that state of 
feeling has passed away; and although I have lived to sec a great many generations 
of ministers all around me, and to regret the removal of those who have preceded me, 
by death or otherwise, jet 1 am delighted with the class of young ministers that now 
.surround me. 1 love them; hut while 1 love them well, I do not forget the old 
ministers. I do not forget Father Beach; I do not forget Mr. Prentice, Mr. Perry, 
and Dr. Lathrop; I do not forget any of that class of men who have passed away. 
They were good men. 

But we had great times in those days as to our incomes. I think, if I recollect 
right, my reverend friend (Mr. Marsh) during the whole of his ministry never received 
more than $480 per annum. Whatever he has done for this church, whatever b.0 has 
done for this community, whatever he has done for the world, he has received as a 
pecuniary compensation lor it, while he did receive anything, $430 per annum! I 
hink my brother Beach, in that nourishing village, r< i00. But one of my 

parishioners said thej meant to have me have a fat salary, and that should he 5C5D, 
and it was that for a long Series Of years. So we had great limes iii those days as to 
tmaking money and getting rich ! 

But there i^ one thing that I onght to notice. A g;reat deal has been said, and 
justly said, with which 1 entirely sympathise, in commendation of my venerable and 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 565 

lour tried friend, Mr. Marsh. His influence over his brethren, as one of them has 
already testified, has been silent, modest, Dot obtrusive; not so much that of great 
intellectual power as of sincerity, truth, self-sacrifice, and unfeigned devotion. No 
jealousy in his mind of his brethren if they had gifts ; no jealousy of their reputation 
if they acquired it ; no jealousy of their influence, but delighted by it, wherever it was 
manifesting itself. 

One other thing I may notice, unless I exceed my time. It is said, and I do not 
know but it is true, for I never have had any experience of the kind myself, that an 
ex-minister, residing in the place where he has been a pastor, is likely to be — and 
often proves — one of the most uncomfortable of parishioners that it is possible to find. 
My venerable friend has been an ex-minister longer and sooner perhaps than he ought 
to have been, but I will not insist on that. But in all that time he has never in any 
instance exerted a disturbing influence on the congregation He never has been 
otherwise than willing to become small and to retire, while his successor came forward 
and occupied the place that he had filled so Ion;;. I think this is a great test of 
character, for if we have had influence in a community it is with difficulty that we 
consent to relinquish our position. 

But I fear if I proceed further on tins theme I shall exceed my time and abuse your 
patience. I wish simply to say that I also feel that the influence of our venerable 
friend has been good over me, and I thank God that He has lengthened his days for 
this very purpose, that he mi»ht exhibit these beautiful traits as the fruits of that 
gospel which be has preached so long and so successfully. I love him, and he loves 
me, and we cheer each other; but, as I said, I love all the young ministers too. I feel 
almost as though I was young, although they begin to tell me that I am old. 

The choir then sang the hymn, " All hail the power of Jesus' name," 
&c. 

Mr. CoRtDON A. Alvord, of Hartford, was next introduced, and 
spoke as follows : — 

Mr. Chairman:— I did not expect this honor, and am therefore quite unprepared 
to respond satisfactorily ; and yet the occasion, the old friends 1 see before me, and the 
feeling of love for the dear old town, ever active in my mind, combine and impel me 
to say a few words. Forty years ago I was a Printer's Devil,— a harmless Imp, I 
trust, but still a Devil. While in that form, C. W. Everest, having some knowledge 
of the Typographic Art, labored a few hours every day in the regions where I was 
Imp, for the purpose of obtaining means wherewith to pay his board while obtaining 
an education, for verily, like every other genius, he was poor. C. W. E. was fond of 
music, was a Poet, and a candidate for the ministry, and with all these inspirations in 
his soul, he often encouraged our " Quartette Club," which never existed except when 
"P. C." was out of the office, (" P. C." was our master,) to sing sentimental songs. 
Eventually our store became exhausted, and we produced the only one we had left, the 
air of which pleased him very much, but he was not satisfied with the words. The 
next morning he took from his pocket an original manuscript which he bad composed 
the previous evening, and requested us to sin- it to the old air be loved so well ; and 
as it seems so fitting to the present occasion, T will recite it, for we subsequently sang 
it to him so frequently that I shall never forget it. 

72 



566 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The friends we loved in childhood, 

Oh whither have they fled ? 
Beneath the village church yard 

They slumber with the dead. 
In peace they rest beneath the sod, 

Their earthly labors o'er ; 
The friends we loved in early youth 

Wc meet on earth no more. 

The friends we loved in childhood, 

When life was young and gay, 
How blithesome were their footsteps 

Throughout the joyous day ; 
And lightly tripped their merry feet 

Across the flowery plain, 
But the friends we loved in early youth 

We ne'er shall meet again. 

The friends we loved in childhood, 

How fond their memory seems ; 
They haunt us in our slumbers, 

They whisper in our dreams ; 
And then we wake with saddened heart 

To find our bliss but vain, 
For the friends we loved in early youth 

We ne'er shall meet again. 

The friends we loved in childhood, 

Oh peaceful be their rest ; 
And green may be the willow 

That sighs above their breast , 
And when in death we lowly sleep, 

Secure from all our pain, 
Oh the friends we loved in early youth 

May we meet in peace again. 

Most good landscape paintings have their shades, shadows, and perspective, — their 
high lights, and their deep shadows. I have given you the shady part first. It may 
not be agreeable, but it is full of rich color, and is an excellent study. Now, look 
this way and see how beautifully the light breaks in upon it from beyond McAlpine's 
hill, and there we see several of those nice little girls who, not very long ago, tripped 
merrily with us " across the flowery plain," over the hills, ami through the woods, in 
pursuit of blackberries, partridge berries, chestnuts, pleasure, and health, in all the 
simplicity of innocence and eo fidence; studied t he dreaded lessons with us at school, 
rode down the steep hills with us on our hand sleds, and husked corn with us at the 
evening gathering in the well filled old brown barn, and were not afraid to laugh when 
a red ear came to their hand, though they fully understood it.s tremendous conse- 
quences. They are here in goodly numbers; a little more mature, indeed, but still 
essentially the same. And here again is a motley group of those barefooted, earnest 
looking little hoys, Fresh from the pasture, the field and the garden, who never liked 
to rake after the cart when father or the hired man wielded the pitchfork, especially 
if hurried by the approach of a shower, and somehow or other father always seemed to 
fancy that there was a shower coming up when wc were getting in hay. But those 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 5(37 

boys did like to get their task finished and then go down to the brook, or over to the 
pond, and catch a good string of fish. The Sunday School is prominent here in the 
foreground, and just there to the left is the Singing School, with the Pitch Pipe in the 
hand of a very short, pleasant looking man, and a reasonable sized violoncello in front 
of a still pleasanter and younger man, who strikingly resembles a prominent musical 
one upon the present stage. It seems to me that I can see in that smoke a pleasant 
afternoon tea party of old ladies, with their bright knitting needles snapping away in 
an animated style, and we can almost hear them gossiping, but noc really slandering 
anybody very much ; and there is surely an accidental evening gathering of men at a 
neighbor's house, with the ever-present dish of apples and pitcher of cider upon the 
table, and we can imagine them discussing politics, breaking roads, and giving the 
Minister a " spell." 

Far back in the dim distance we can discern men riding to meeting on horseback, 
each with a woman behind him on a pillion, for wagons arc scarce, the roads are rough, 
and go straight from point to point over the tops of the highest hills, with thick for- 
ests on every hand, and occasionally a black bear and a brown Indian from the thicket 
glare at them as they pass quietly alone:, but do not molest them, for these are days of 
wonderful advancement and civilization as compared with the wilder ones immediately 
preceding. That is one hundred years ago, and a choice and cherished few present 
have been almost to the threshold of that enchanted castle, but not one can really say 
that he saw it, though he remembers many who resided within its walls; yet we all 
contribute ourselves and our lives to make up portions of this plain picture of the past. 

And now turn we to the right, and just square before us opens another picture, more 
brilliant, more beautiful, and much more agreeable to contemplate, because so much 
of it is illumined with the high lights of the hopeful future. See how broad and even 
all the roads are, and with what graceful curves and easy grades they wind around 
those beautiful elevations, which in the other picture seemed such ugly hills, because 
presenting so sharp an obstacle to progress. Sec those open, airy, gorgeous carriages, 
each containing from six to ten persons, as elegantly dressed as their carriages are 
ornamented, and unconcernedly moving on over this once rough country, at the com- 
fortable rate of sixty miles an hour, impelled by that element once so much feared and 
so little understood, but now the faithful, powerful, humble servant of enlightened man, 
electricity. Those are all our own descendants, and I believe they arc going to the 
renowned city of Winsted, to celebrate the bi-centennial of their native town, and re- 
hearse, with occasional touches of affectionate derision the stupid customs of their 
savage ancestors, when none but men made the laws, while women cooked the food 
and took special care of the young, and, absurd as it may seem, many will believe it. 

I believe my time has expired, and I will take my scat. 

Music by the band. 

Deacon Abel S. Wetmore then briefly related a few anecdotes illustrative of 
the character and habits of the people of the earlier clays of the town, and began by a 
reference to two former deacons of the ehureh, who were spoken of in the address of 
the morning as being very pious and godly men — namely, Deacon Seth Hills and 
Deacon Samuel Wetmore, who were said to occupy together the front seat before the 
pulpit, and to love each other very much. But on one occasion they had such a dis- 
pute about the sawing of some logs, at the mill of Deacon Wetmore, as to prove they 
still had a little human nature about them; but after some sharp words they retired to 
a thicket near the mill, and doubtless became completely reconciled by mutual confes- 
sion and forgiveness, as they came out with shining faces, and never gave any occa- 
sion in the future for doubt as to their genuine regard for each other. 



568 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The real origin of the name of Blue Btreel was from a sort of agreement made 
among the settlers in that street, amounting to a regular code of laws. One rule was 
that every man must have his wood pile cat out by snch a day in Spring, and every 
man must .have his grain threshed out by a certain date. One man by the name of 
Beach tailed to come up in this respect to the rule, and one very dark eight the rest 
of the neighbors got into the barn and took positions on the floor so that thev would 
not heat each other, and began threshing the grain with all their might. They waked 
up the old gentleman and his wife, and after some hesitation the two started for the 
barn to sec what was going on there. The old gentleman took his lantern, hut the 
men in the barn being in the dark, when they saw the light shining through the 
eracks of the barn became still as mice, except to keep the threshing going. This so 
frightened the old man that he went hack and told his wife he helievcd there was 
"some evil design if not evil spirits out there." 

There was a man living in the centre by the name of Theodore Goodwin, a very 
benevolent man to all the poor, though not a professor of religion. Uncle Jed. Coe 
lived about three-fourths of a mile north. He was in moderate circumstances, and 
was preparing to move to Vermont. Mr. Goodwin took it into his head to collect 
some money to help neighbor Coe. He went down to Mr. Beach to get some money, 
and took another man to go in with him to see how he succeeded in getting a sub- 
scription. On going in Mr. Goodwin said, " How do you do, Mr. Beach V " Pretty 
well ; how do you do, Mr. Goodwin '." Said he, " Tins gentleman and I have had a 
little discussion about a certain passage in Scripture. The passage is, ' Cast thy 
bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.' What docs that 
mean'?" Says Uncle Joel (Mr. Beach) : " I am pretty ignorant, hut I suppose it means 
that if you don't give when any body wants help you will be a covetous old hunk." 
Says Uncle Theodore Goodwin, 'I vow that's just as I thought, exactly. I am 
doing something for Mr. Coe, and I came in to see what you would do for him ! " 
Mr. Beach drew out a quarter of a dollar and said, "Mr. Goodwin, 1 wish you would 
be good enough to hand that to Mr. Coe." 

Rev. F. A. Spencbb, of Vernon, N. Y., was next called upon. He did not know 
why he was invited to speak, as be was not a native of the town. His father and 
mother moved away a little too quick. His grandfather, however, was buried here. 
He came to the town about ninety-nine years ago. His grave is by that of the Rev. 
Mr. Knapp, whose gravestone is in three pieces. 

The Spencers came to this conn try about 245 years ago with old Parson Hooker 
of the First Church of Hartford, and 1 hold in my hand the cane that my grand- 
father walked through Winchester with a hundred years ago, and notwithstanding the 
changes of the fashion, it is still in the fashion of today- It is 250 years old at least. 
I have also another specimen that appertains to Winchester. It is my grandfather's 
account hook. Here are the names of the old men whom Mr. Blake mentioned in 
his address this morning. These charges were made almost a century ago, in 1774 — 

In October 1774 Cap. Alvord Dehtcr to horse 



to torrington twice 


00 


02 


00 





to soling your shoes 


(10 


1 


2 





to washing your shirt sundry times 


00 


3 






to spinin^ your wool 


00 


1 


8 





to nitten mitten 


00 


1 


4 


00 


to nitten stokens, 


00 


1 


6 





My grandfather was a fanner, and he lived on the farm which Mr. Eggleston now 
owns. The old house, 1 am told, is torn down, hut when 1 came here, eighteen 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 509 

years ago, I went to see it, then standing, and found my-elf in the room where Uncle 
Jonathan Coe said all the courting was done, for there were seven or eight daughters. 
In regard to the cane, my English ancestor gave it to his. son Thomas, because he 
bore his name. It has upon it still the initials, T. S. My grandfather died before I 
was born. He loved his minister, and lies buried by his side. My parents were 
married by the Rev. Mr. Bogue. 

Mr. John R. Pitkin was the next speaker, who said that though Colebrook was 
his native town he came to Winchester when fourteen years of age, and remained here 
for some time. He said he was at eight o'clock this morning in the city of New York, 
aud he had made all possible haste to be present to attend this meeting. He then 
went on to relate some incidents that he was familiar with when a boy in that part of 
Winchester called Millbrook. One man lived there who always kept his word. He 
was in company at one time with six young ladies, and fell in love with the whole of 
them. He finally said he would many the one that spoke first, agreeing to it. One 
accepted him at once, and they were married, and lived happily. That man was 
Reuben Hungerford. Mr. Hungerford was a farmer, and he measured his hay so 
that he knew exactly bow much to give out every day of the year. He cut his pork 
into a certain number of pieces, so as to have a piece for each day. He had about an 
acre of grass cut down at one time, aud nearly ready to be put in the barn, but he 
said to himself, " I will turn it out once more before I go to dinner." He commenced 
but there came up a heavy thunder shower while he was at work. I happened to 
stand in front of the field, and saw him keep on during the shower, turning his hay, 
first one way and then another. After the shower he came up and laid his hand on 
the fence, and said, " I don't know but you think it odd to see me turning hay in the 
rain, but I said I would do it, and I thought I would finish it ." 

Other incidents were related, showing the fame characteristic trait in Mr. Hunger- 
ford, and the speaker then proceeded to tell of his own experiences : first in Torrington, 
where he taught a rather disorderly school, and brought it to a good condition without 
the use of the rod, so fashionable in those days; then going back, he spoke of his 
boyhood at Millbrook, and of his working there for Mr. Erastus Woodford for $5 a 
month, and closed by a short sketch of his future life. 

The Benediction was then pronounced by Rev. Mr. Marsh, and the 
meeting was adjourned till 7^ o'clock at the Second Congregational 
Church in Wintted. 



p;vening meeting at the second congregational 
church, west winsted. 

B. B. ROCKWELL, President. 

The meeting was promptly called to order at half past seven o'clock, 
at which time the church was filled to overflowing. 

Welcome isy the President. 

Old Friends and Acquaintances : — I have been thinking, since I sat here, this 
evening, about the familiar scenes that used to transpire at our home, where father 
and mother sat around the fire, aud the children began to come in from their play and 



570 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

the men from their work ; neighbors began to drop in and the circle widened all around 
the room, and there was a kind greeting for all. I believe that we who are the present 
residents of Winsted feel pretty much so when we see our friends come back as you 
have done on this occasion. We hid you welcome ; we arc glad to see you. We have 
hail to-day sermon and song and excellent entertainment at the other Society; to-night 
we meet in a more informal manner. The names of several gentlemen have heen 
handed me, ami I shall, perhaps, call on some others whom I have met. There are 
many here whom we shall he glad to hear from. 

The first gentleman called upon was Jamics Miller, Esq., of Grand 
Rapids, Michigan, a native of Winsted. 

He commenced by a reference to his profession, that of a lawyer, and thought it 
time that lawyers were oftencr invited to participate in meetings of this character; 
that clergymen should not enjoy all the front seals, as they have done since the land- 
ing of the Mayflower. His father was the first lawyer who settled in Winsted, and 
practiced here more than twenty-five years, having settled in town about 1806, and 
having acquired the name here, although he was a lawyer, of honest Jo. Miller. 

Many things recollected by the speaker as having occurred here in his boyhood were 
recited. He was only eleven years old when his father's family removed to Michigan ; 
and it was in part because his father thought it not a good place in which to bring up 
his sons, that he removed West. In fact, the older hoys had been drawn into some 
rude scenes that troubled their father's spirit, one of which was a sort of calithumpian 
concert on the occasion of the marriage of a spinster named Cantlace Scoville. On 
one occasion, his father, returning from Litchfield where he had been attending court, 
brought home some hoys' hats that did not please the older brothers, for whom they 
were intended; and so, to be rid of them, they put them on, one Independence day, 
and wore them to the place where the cannon was being fired, and as it was loaded, 
they clapped one hat into the other, and both over the muzzle of the gun, when, as the 
word tire was given by Joseph, the elder boy, the hats disappeared in the smoke; but 
two hatless boys had a Hogging that evening as a part of the day's celebration. Sev- 
eral other reminiscences of his early days were recalled, bearing upon the habits of 
certain individuals then residing here, as they appeared to the eyes of a child; among 
others, the names of his early teachers were mentioned, particularly that of Mr. Hunt- 
ington, teacher of the Academy, and those of his playmates. As one of the experi- 
ments in chemistry and physiology, Mr. Huntington had a trial of langhing gas. 
Among others who took this gas, was George Gaylord, who was not much affected by 
it at first, but after a time he "made a straight wake for a young lady by the name 
of Champion, and put his arms around her neck and kissed her, which, on her part, 
did not seem to hi' considered much out of the way." 

" When I think of the changes," said he, " which have occurred in New England in 
the past forty years, when I sec what I have seen during the past week or two in trav- 
eling through this section, and that it is a country of the most surpassing loveliness 
that ever met the eye of man ; and when 1 see how much man lias done to beautify it, 
I wonder that my lather ever emigrated to the West, ami why those who have gone 
out on the prairies do not come back to this land of loveliness. New England, to-day, 
1 believe to he the very centre of the planet, SO far as it relates to everything that is 
worthy of human aspiration and human desire. 1 may not look upon it with impartial 
eyes, but it seems to me that here is a return to the rejuvenated paradise." (Applause.) 

r flic. President. I find here the name of a man who was so unfortunate 
as not to lie born here; but he did the nexl besi thing, he came here and 
married ;i wife — lii;v. Di;. Sri ii i , of Easthampton. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 571 



REMARKS OF REV. SAM'L T. SEELYE, D. D ., of Easthampton, Mass. 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: — lam sorry for several things, but 
glad of many more. I am sorry there is not a platform here instead of a pulpit; I 
am sorry there are not more lawyers to relieve the ministers from the necessity of ad- 
dressing you this evening. It is such a luxury for ministers to keep still, it is always 
a pleasure to listen to others. I am glad we have had one lawyer to address us. I 
am sorry to be in the pulpit and to be compelled to take up a new subject so that I 
cannot take a text, and consequently cannot turn the barrel over for an old sermon ; 
for I was requested to say something about the kdies. What shall I say] Most of 
us express the honest sentiments of our hearts in the question, what could we do 
without them'? Now and then I hear a man say, what can we do with them 1 
(Laughter.) But I am satisfied that the first class are largely in the majority here; 
and I am happy to say a word for them, and to express here in this public manner my 
indebtedness to them. I believe no man enters into this celebration with a more joyous 
heart than I do ; that no man, even if he be a lawyer, and had the good fortune to be 
born in Winstcd, has a better right to speak to you on this occasion than I have today ; 
because I don't think that all of these gentlemen who were born here in Winstcd — I 
don't think one of them — appreciates the privileges he has enjoyed as I appreciate those 
which have been given to me. I found my wife here. She was born in the town of 
Winchester and borough of Winsted. And, my friends, it is a thing I have never 
told before, even privately ; but it was in the town of Winchester, twenty-three years 
ago, that I, with that tremor which some of you have felt, I am sure, and that sinking 
of heart, plead with a Winchester girl to take pity upon me. (Laughter.) And she, 
blushing sweetly, herein the town of Winchester, with great diffidence, consented to share 
the trials and the joys of a poor minister's life. She has been by my side through 
these twenty-three years, an unfailing and blessed help-meet, making every day brighter 
by her sunny presence. To her I owe everything ; all the happiness with which my 
life, for these twenty- three years, has been filled. 

And I am glad to say this to you to-night, and to give you this reason for the joy 
that fills my whole heart on this glad occasion, this Centennial Celebration. Now, 
who of you rejoices as I do on this occasion ? There are some of you who have been 
blessed as I have, and can share my joys; but these men that were simply born here, 
they have no right to this platform to-night, I am very sure ! 

Now I owe to the ladies what I owe to Winchester, and I shall express my obligation 
to them all. But I hardly know where to begin when I am obliged to do this in ten 
minutes. When boys have been sitting near the clock while I was speaking, I have 
known them to stop it ; but I know those young ladies in the gallery this evening will 
not do it. There is one contrast in their favor. 

When my brother was giving the contrast between the state of society a hundred 
years ago and now, he said nothing about the ladies, and it seemed to me that if we 
could have a picture before us of the young lady of a century ago, by the side of a 
young lady of to-day, we should see what changes had come over this world of ours 
more clearly than we do see them by the representations of the material progress in 
other directions, to which our attention is commonly turned. Now that shows to me 
the changes wrought in a hundred years better than the railroads and telegraphs, and 
all the inventions in which we pride ourselves. 

I remember my grandmother, who was a young lady nearly a hundred years ago, 
dressed in her short gown and flannel petticoat. (Laughter). Some of you have 
seen such a dress. There she was, at the. expense of a dollar and fifty cents, well 
dressed, with a dress fit for all the demands of her household and. her farm. What 



572 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

was her house-keeping'? She has told me many a time how she used to put the pot 
on the fire in the morning, and the logs were big enough in the fire-place to keep 
burning all the forenoon, and at this season of the year she used to go out and help 
her husband in the harvest and hay field, ami when they came in at dinner time it was 
all ready, all that was wanted was to put it on the table. There was little ceremony, 
but they ate as heartily and with as much satisfaction as we cat to-day. What a 
change! Dress up a young lady now in a short gown, not over a yard and a-half, 
and a flannel petticoat, and put her by the side of the young ladies of to-day. 
(Laughter.) Why, I could not begin to mention the articles in my ten minutes that 
go to make up a lady's dress of to-day, and then the expense of it all ! A dollar and 
a half? What do they charge for making a dress ? I have occasion to know, for my 
wife asks me for the money. Why, Mrs. Flint of Boston, you know, charged SI, 500 
for making a single dress! What a contrast! And what a glorious change! 
(Laughter.) As the picture comes to my eye, see what an advance has been made in 
our civilization. (Great Laughter.) Who would wish to go back to those days? 
Why, my wife, much as I love her — to see her dressed in a short gown and a flannel 
petticoat — why, we could not get used to it, and I could not love her as well as now. 
What taste they manifest in arranging the colors; what a vast amount of material 
they require; how much time they spend in shaping ; how improving to their minds; 
what a means of mental and moral improvement; how expanding to the intellect. 
(Laughter.) Why, what taste there is exhibited in a little bonnet, little as it is, so 
small that you can cover it with the palm of the hand! Who would wish to go 
back ? 

Why, I rather have such a young lady than my grandmother. (Great laughter.) 
Who would not? Now, here is an evidence of the advancement made in the 
last one hundred years. Don't talk about the Atlantie cable, and flashing your 
thoughts over the ocean or under it in an instant, anil reading the news of Europe to- 
day at your breakfast table to-morrow morning. Don't talk about that! Just think 
of your grandmother; there you have the whole thing right before you in an instant. 
(Renewed merriment.) 

Well, my friends, in another respect there has been a great change. My grand- 
mother used to sew, and make my grandfather's clothes. She took the wool ami 
carded and spun it, and then she wove it into cloth. And my grandfather was a good- 
looking man, appeared admirably, as you might imagine, and dressed in his home- 
spun suit, every bit of it made by my grandmother. Then my grandmother helped 
him in the field, and rode behind him on a pillion. The lady then acknowledged the 
husband as the head of the house; bis word was law. But this lady of the present 
day; whose word is law to her? Now the gentleman has to put his hat under his 
arm and stand as a humble servant. What a wonderful change, and what an 
improvement! (Laughter.) How much h iter fitted to guide the world. Put a 
young lady of to day by the side of my grandfather, splendid man as he was, and how 
much better fitted to t'll 1 1 i in what tlie men ought to do than my grandmother was! 

But I want to say of the grand old celebration up in Winchester, the thing that 
delighted me as much as anything was to find — as the razor-strop man used to say — 
a few more left, like my wile. There are ladies like her, young gentlemen, and I 
hope you will profit by my example. By the way, speakingof the razor-strop man 
remind- me of one way in which I got the better of my wife ; about the only time. 
When we began iife we were bored by having agents of all sorts who wanted to come 

and stop with us. That was because they found my wife was a g 1 cook, and they 

liked to come and stay a good while, till L got tired of it. My. temper is not so sweel 
as hers, and Id. aid nol endure their Crowding upon us as well as she did. There 
was one codger came at one time and brought a paper blowing that he was a member 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 573 

of the New Haven North Consociation, and said he had a claim on me. I did not see 
how that was. It was in the forenoon ; I was busy writing my sermon. He said, " I 
have nine children." I said, "You have?" and kept on with my writing. I did not 
want to be bothered by him, and let him go. When he had gone out, my wife thought 
I was too bad, and so I rushed to the door and said, "Brother Butts, if you cannot find 
any place for dinner, come here to dinner." That was the most cordial invitation I 
gave him. He did not come to dinner, but he came to tea, and stayed over a week, 
peddling books throughout Wolcottville One night I went to bed early, and he did 
not get in. The next evening he asked me, " Brother Seelye, when do you go to 
bed 1 " I said, " When nobody is in." After that he came in every evening early. 
(Laughter.) One day a German Jew came along peddling, and wanted to trade. 
" No," I said, " clear out." Said he, " Don't you want a razor for twenty-five cents'?" 
" Yes," I said, " I do." All those chaps would borrow my razor, and dull it, and it 
struck me that that was just the thing I wanted for them. Next week a brother came 
along, amouncing himself as Brother Simmons. He has gone now, I trust, to Heaven, 
though I am anxious about him. (Laughter.) He came to stay with me, of course, 
and my wife's influence was sufficient for that. Tke next morning while I was 
dressing he came down, with an enormous black beard, and looked as though he had 
not shaved for a week. He wanted to borrow my razor. So I let him have the new 
one that had never seen a hone, and I gave him soap and a brush, and he went back, 
and I was happy for half an hour. At the end of that time Brother Simmons came 
down, with just as much hair on his face as when he went up. (Laughter.) Said lie, 
" I want to ask one question. Did you ever shave you with that razor'? " " No, sir, 
I got it for just such chaps as you." He never came again, and that is where I got 
the better of my wife. 

Now I come back to my subject, the ladies. There was a lady in my first parish 
who was of the old school, for she lived nearly a century ago, and she managed her 
household, for a wonder, as a premonition of what was to be at this time. I was 
invited thc^e to tea, and when we had seated ourselves at the talde, I supposed, as her 
minister, and the only pastor present, she was going to invite me to ask a blessing. 
She said, " Mr. Seelye, I would like to ask you a question." I looked up. Said 
she, " I would like to enquire whether you ask a blessing at the beginning, and return 
thanks at the close, or do you do it all up under one'? " I said, " 1 usually do it up 
under one." Said she, "Then please to do it." (Laughter and applause.) 



Singing by the Choir. 



Rev. Samuel Rockwell, of New Britain, Connecticut, was then 
introduced. 

I am requested, Mr. President, to speak of the pioneers of this town, and of their 
work. It would give me great pleasure to speak, for the short time allowed me, in 
recalling to mind some of my own cotemporaries of sixty years ago, as they appeared 
to my youthful eyes. I would like, if there were time, to single out the individuals 
and give their characteristics as they presented themselves to me; to speak of your 
Cocs, your Cooks, Boyds, Hinsdales, and many other honored names, who bore no 
mean part in laying the foundations of the social structure of this now populous and 
73 



574 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

thriving town. I would like to pay my respects to that honored lady and teacher who 
taught our village school. She kept a trundle bed in her school room for the benefit 
of those little urchins who were weary even with their listless want of occupation, and 
became drowsy on the warm summer days. It was the great aspiration of many who 
attended that school to occupy a place in the trundle lied. 

I recollect many honored names of the past generation, from the Old Society, as they 
came over the hills to this then growing village. One of this class I recollect, who 
came over one stormy winter's day when the wind was whistling and the snow flying. 
He remarked that when he got to Winsted, he felt as if he had got into Abraham's 
bosom. "Whether those who now come here from the Old Socii ty feel precisely in that 
way, I leave them to determine. 

I might recall the name of the daring innovator upon the customs of society and 
the church, who, it was feared, was far in advance of the age, when he advocated the 
introduction of the bass-viol into the village choir. Some of you may remember the 
strong and bitter controversy which arose on that occasion in regard to that innova- 
tion. But there were at that ]*ciiod many such scenes of scandal in different parts of 
the country. They did not proceed so far here as in one place of which you may have 
heard, where the clergyman, after exhausting his arguments against the introduction 
of instrumental music into the choir in vain, determined to try ridicule; and in order 
to make the practice appear as incongruous as possible, as he rose to read the morning 
hymn, he said, with as much gravity as he could assume, "Let us fiddle and sing to 
the praise of God the 119th Psalm, fourth part, long metre." (Laughter.) 

The men of that period, as I recall them, were men of laborious toil, and they had 
a hard soil to cultivate. It is said that a traveler, passing through the north part of 
Winchester, going towards Oolebrook, in those early days, meeting a person, inquired, 
"Can you tell me where I am, and where I am going?" " You arc in Winchester, 
and you arc going to hell," was the reply. "Well," responded the traveler, "I 
thought, from the looks of the country and the inhabitants, I could not be very far 
distant." (Laughter.) 

I rejoice, Mr. President, in such a celebration as this, for various reasons. It brings 
together a great number of those who have formerly been acquainted, and it recalls 
many very interesting reminiscences of the early history of our New England towns ; 
and it also establishes many important facts of history which will be found of great 
value at some future period. These facts of history, which we now esteem of so little 
importance, will hereafter be regarded as of the greatest consequence, as they stand 
connected with the progress and advancement of the country. And for this do I re- 
joice in such celebrations as recount the virtues of the settlers of the New England 
towns, because they laid broad ami deep the foundations of public virtue in private 
Christian lives, in the church and in the cultivation of all those graces which adorn 
humanity, which Strengthen the cause of good order among men, and which prove to 
be at the very basis of all civil government and all true advancement in Society. 

I find in the Organization of these New England towns, based as they are upon broad 
and liberal Christian principles, the solution of one of the most difficult and one of 
the most important problems which now agitates the various nations of the world, as 
it bears upon the true source of political power, and the most effective means of pro- 
moting true social advancement and high intellectual culture. Sir, these towns are 
the aggregate of the Christian families. Stat s and empires, where well organized, 
arc the aggregates of towns and municipal corporations; bin these towns and munici- 
pal corporations are |, lIt the aggregate of well-ordered families; and I find in these 
New England families, built up upon Christian principles, the very germs of all our 
social order and public virtue, of all that constitute the elements of greatness in the 
community. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 575 

I rejoice in it therefore, and would gladly recall the names and the labors of those 
men, who have taken even the humblest part in this great work of laying the founda- 
tions of our social structure thus broad and deep, so that future generations may rise 
and call them blessed. 

It is sometimes charged against us as a people, by foreigners and even our own cit- 
izens who have traveled abroad, that we have here no public monuments. We look 
around in vain for those stupendous columns of marble or brass which are erected to 
commemorate some splendid event in war. They are not here. But a year ago my 
daily walk in Paris took me under the shadow of that majestic column in the Place 
Vendome, where, but a few months later, the brainless mob vented their spite and 
hate against the man whose image crowned its summit by bringing all the resources 
of their engineering art to level it with the dust. You may go through Europe and 
find everywhere a veneration for antiquity, and in every city some splendid monument 
of the past, something that has existed for a thousand years or more. The whole 
people take a pride in these noble monuments. But when foreigners or our own citi- 
zens tell us we have no public monuments, I reply, we have something better ; we have 
founded and built institutions, which extend their benign influence over ail classes of 
society, which carry their blessings to every fireside and every individual, which define, 
protect, and sacredly guard individual rights as the very germ of all social advance- 
ment. It is a glaring shame upon the men of any nation, that, whatever may have 
been the monument that they so hated, they should prostrate it in the dust; but it is 
a deeper dishonor for any man who exerts an influence in society to scatter around 
him a corrupt example, thus attacking at the very basis all public virtue, and upturn- 
ing from their deep foundations those institutions, so noble and beneficent, which our 
fathers took such pains to build. The men who found institutions upon the Bible are 
doing a nobler work than the erection of monuments of brass or marble; and those 
who are living for the future, who arc exerting an influence of purity, intelligence, and 
virtue, worthy of that society which shall reach to future generations, are doing a 
nobler work than those who built Karnac or Palmyra. Then all honor to the men 
who built their homes on these hiil tops and in these valleys ; who cultivated these 
slopes and even subdued the ridges of the granite hills, to leave to us this heritage. 

The President. I have a long list of names here of persons on 
whom I wish to call this evening, but I fear if long spc-eclies are made 
there will not be time for all to be heard. I want now to ask Deacon 
Ira Hills, who is a native of this town, to let us hear from him. 

Deacon Hills not being present, Hon. John Boyd stated that he had himself ex- 
pected to see that gentleman present; but he would say that Deacon Hills was proba- 
bly the oldest Winchester-born man living, and would be known to many in the 
audience as the able correspondent of the Winstcd Herald. lie is a son of Deacon 
Seth Hills, the first deacon of Winchester, who went into the woods of Vernon, 
New York, and cut down the first trees in that town, and was the deacon of the 
first church there; and our guest, Deacon Ira Hills, is now, or has been, one of his 
successors. 

It is proper to state, that I think there were over forty Winchester families, who in 
that great exodus found their way into that town, as soon as they could get through 
the Dutch settlements ; ami they made there one of the best towns in New York. 
Deacon Hills also wishes me to state that he comes here in behalf of himself and 
townsmen, but was especially delegated to represent Mrs. Rebecca Church, the eldest 
daughter of the elder Samuel Ilurlbut, I think she is 93 or 95 years old, and wished 
to be especially remembered on this occasion. 



576 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

i 
Samuel Boyd, Esq., of New York, was next called upon, who <li> 

claimed any recognition of the right of the President to present his name 

as one of the speakers. He, however, proceeded to say : 

I was born in this town, and married my wife here, and lived here until about 1834. 
I used to be about here considerably subsequently ; but I am now among entire strangers. 
I do not know you. Previous to 1834 I knew every man, woman, and child within ten 
miles of this place. I have resided since I went away from here, nearly half the time, 
in an extreme southern state, and a part of the time in New York. I have not come 
back to you a worse man than when I left yon ; I am a better man. I do not know 
that I have any vice, as it can be called, about me. I have no speech to make, hut I am 
glad to sec you, my old friends and young friends. It is, to be sure, somewhat morti- 
fying to come back and find myself among strangers, where formerly I have known 
every man, woman, and child. About 45 years ago I was an ambitious young man, 
in a store directly across the street here. I started the first opposition store that was 
built in this town, and which was the only one, I believe, for many years. There was 
a Democratic store started some years ago in opposition to the Federalists. Hut I 
started the store which I have referred to, and afterwards carried on a large manufactur- 
ing business. I come back now a comparative stranger. I have met a great many 
men in the Old Society, who had gone out of my mind. I have m >de the acquaintance 
of thousands and thousands since I went away. I have lived in a southern city fifteen 
years, and have seen hundreds and thousands die; have taken care of the sick in that 
terrible disease, the yellow fever. " I have seen the elephant ;" and am thankful that 
I am spared, and that my children, who were most of them born here, are all doing 
well. 

The choir then sang the following : — 

BEAUTIFUL DAYS. 

CENTENNIAL ODE, BY DR. W. J. WETMORE, OF NEW FORK. 

Beautiful days of the past, 

How your bright visions return : 
Bringing back faces and forms 

Long buried in love's hallowed urn ; 
Voices seem heard on the air, 

Echoes that tenderly sigh ; 
Oh ! what delight to recall 

Past friendships that never can die. 

Chorus. — Beautiful days of the past. 

Memory, sweet memory, restore 

Loved ones long, long ago fled, 
Who would not see them again, 

Our cherished and favorite dead ' 
But they can never return, 

Memory's bells mournfully chime : 
Years are fasl Boating away, 

Down the dark river of Time. 

CHORUS. — Beautiful days, &c. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 577 

Hark ! how the melodies float 

Out from the grave of the past ; 
Bringing back memories of old, — 

Sweet memories that ever will last. 
Round us bright spirits appear, 

Breathing their lessons of love; 
Oh ! may we join them at last, 

To praise Thee in mansions above. 
Chorus. — Beautiful days, &c. 

Dr. D. Williams Patterson, of Newark Valley, N. York, was then 
introduced. He said, 

My Friends : — I suppose you remember the fellow, who, on being asked to speak, 
while pleading the suddenness of the eall (though ho had privately had three weeks' 
notice) and lamenting his consequent lack of preparation, coolly drew from his pocket, 
and began to read his fully written speech. I am here to-night to fill his place. My 
notice was ample, under ordinary circumstances, but such were the difficulties for me to 
overcome "before starting for this place, that I had scarcely time to pack my extra 
shirt before the whistle blew for the starting train. 

Perhaps the only reason your committee can give for calling on me, is, that as I, 
for nearly twenty years, took my bread out of the mouths of this community, I must, 
of course, be filled with good things, and should be required to open my mouth in re- 
turn. This may all seem very fair, but pay-day is not always pleasant to the debtor ; 
nor, in case of his failure, to the creditor. 

Now, as you find me thus unprepared, I must put in practice the parting injunction 
of the Irish law-professor to his student, as he sent him into the world to begin his 
practice, which was this ; " when you have nothing to say, say something else." 

I have for more than ten years looked forward to this celebration, though during the 
last half of the time I have scarcely hoped to be present. Thus far my enjoyment has 
been far beyond my brightest hopes, but never in my life have I been so forcibly re- 
minded of the constant procession of humanity from the cradle to the grave ; and 
much more forcibly must that be felt by many of you, whose knowledge of this place 
covers, not like mine, only a quarter of the century whose lapse we now commemo- 
rate ; but a much larger part, running from fifty to ninety years of the time ; and 
how short are the centuries made to seem when we meet and take by the hand our 
venerable friends, Deacon Ira Hills, of Vernon, N. Y., and the Rev. Frederick Marsh ; 
the first a native, the other a resident, of the " Old Society," whose lives have covered 
more than nine-tenths of the time occupied by the history of tbis town. 

If life endures so well among the natives and residents of that part of the town, 
the oft repeated threat of our old friend, Luke C. Coe, that he would " get set off to 
the Old Society," might well be put in practice by some of us who desire a long life, 
though the chances still seem good in Winsted, for I have to-day seen my old friend, 
uncle Peter Tatro, now eighty-eight years old, showing his age scarcely more than at 
sixty. 

Of those whom I have known in active life, many are no longer to be seen. Among 
them I recall the names of the venerable Deacon James H. Alvord, whom all remem- 
ber with affection and respect; my excellent neighbor, Deacon Elliot Beardsley; and 
the Rev. James Beach, whose long and consistent ministry, in the First Church in 
Winsted, did so much to develope and make permanent the religious faith of the peo- 
ple. The venerable James Boyd, one of the pioneer scythe-makers of the place, 
whose large heart, good will and loving kindness to his fellow men, would never let 
him accept the whole creed taught by the parish minister. 



578 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

The Rev. Daniel Coe, who in his earnest zeal in the temperanee eause, allowed him- 
self to be outwitted by mine host Fyler, formerly of the old tavern here, whom he per- 
suaded to promise that he would sell no more rum; which promise did not prevent the 
sale of other liquors as abundantly as before ; Fyler using the word rum in its specific 
sense, while our reverend friend used it in the generic. His son Nelson D. Coe, and 
others of the name ; good old Uncle Jonathan Coe ; Samuel Ward Coe, the merchant ; 
and Norris Coe, who for so many years carried the mail between Winsted anil tin: 
"Old Society," scarcely ever losing a trip, till tripped by death, who seemed to care 
nothing for the penalty threatened by " Uncle Sam." for stopping the mail; and I 
think death has never been arrested for the offence, though he is vet lying in wait 
for Coe's successor on the route. 

Nathan Champion, who long acted as the oldest m.T-on here, bearing the Holy Scrip- 
tures in their processions. 

Lucius Clarke, whose dream of cementing in common brotherhood the rival parte 
of the town, "East Street" and " West Street," by building between them a village 
so large as to swallow them both, and blot out the famous " Creek Bridge," may yet be 
realized by his successors. 

The forcible and energetic Gideon Hall, who, to use his own words, long "lived on 
borrowed time;" and his son of the same name, who, with less than bis father's force of 
character, and more than his polish, rested his weary frame on the bench of the Su- 
perior Court of Connecticut. 

Lieutenant Governor William S. Holabird, whose pious zeal did so much to fix 
St. James' Church in its present location. 

The brothers, Samuel and Lemuel Hurlbut, the successful merchants and stock- 
breeders of the " Old Society," who, by their enterprise, did so much to improve the 
cattle of their town and state, and build up their own fortunes. 

The genial Colonel Hosca Hinsdale ; Rufus Holmes ; and James Humphrey, whose 
honest independence everybody liked. 

William II. Phelps, the successful founder of the Hurlbut Bank. 

William S. Phillips, the merchant, whose excellent qualities made all who knew 
him wish his life far longer, and his fortune great. 

Lucius Skinner, whose violent ami untimely death, met in the discharge of his duty, 
every one deplores. 

William Sanford, the popular landlord of the old hotel. 

Captain Wheelock Thayer, the successful manufacturer and earnest free-soiler; and 
bis son-in-law and successor, Seth I> Wilder, who offered, one bright tirst-of-April, to 
take several of his friends in partnership in a new manufacturing enterprise, which, 
after a somewhat elaborate consideration, proved to be for the production of gigantic, 
bull-frogs in India-rubber, and forever silenced the jokes, which be for years had borne, 
over the mammoth frog of Columbia County. 

The brothers John and Thomas Westlake, whose social qualities none have 
forgotten. 

Charles B. Weed, who did so much to mend your ways ; and last, but not the least, 
my excellent and lamented friend, Erastcs Sterling Woodford, whose sterling 

qualities of heart nind brain endeared him more and more, not only to those who knew 
and loved him well, but to the public generally, and whose place, I know, the people 
have never had harder work to fill, than during the preparation and execution of the 
plan of this centennial commemorative feast. 

But the world is full of compensations ; and while we drop a tear to the memory 
of tho-e who are gone, we rejoice at the evidence of the continued prosperity of the 
town under their successors. 1 rejoice in your graded school, which has grown up, 
mainly since 1 left here, the present standing of which I believe to be largely due 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 579 

to the energy of our friend William G. Coc, who, when chosen school committee in 
1864, allowed himself to be convinced that, although the districts had twice voted 
not to have a graded school, he yet had power to establish one, and, acting on that 
conviction, did so at once, and put it in successful operation. I feci proud of your 
water- works, and possibly not the less, for having penned in 1853, a little paragraph 
for George B. Cook's Winsted Advertiser, the first paper printed in town ; which, so 
far as I know, was the first article ever printed in favor of the project. 

And now, while I must candidly admit that in my theological examination a year 
ago I failed to get a license, and so have no right to preach to you, ycj I must bey 
leave, in behalf of those who, like myself, have left the good old town, to offer a word 
of exhortation to you who yet remain, to guard well its reputation in all respects. 

We, by our removal, have not lost our pride in that good name, but our ability to 
keep it up is greatly lessened. Remember that the past history of the town is not 
alone to be considered; its future history is to be made, and we charge you to see 
that it be so made that neither you nor we shall feel shame for it. 

Let your churches, while they maintain the best reputation for sound doctrine, 
practice the largest toleration, that the greatest number may be brought within their 
influence. Let your schools deserve the name of keeping the best and most accom- 
plished teachers, and of sending out the most ripe and liberal scholars. Let your 
merchants maintain their reputation for honest, fair, and liberal dealing; let your 
manufacturers keep up and improve the good name of their productions; let your 
scythes have the stifFest backs, the brightest blades, and the keenest edges; your pins, 
the firmest shafts, the smoothest heads, and the sharpest points ; let your railways be 
the safest, surest, and most successful, and your telegraphs the most reliable that 
ever distanced lightning. 

Two of my children were born here, and the third first saw the light in another 
state, and I earnestly hope that he may never have a chance to cast upon his elder 
brother and sister the reproach of an unworthy birthplace. 

The choir then sang the old hymn, " The New Jerusalem ; " " From 
the third heaven, where God resides," &c. 

During an earlier period in the evening, his Excellency the Governor, 
Marshall Jewell, had come in, and been received with applause. 
At this point the president took the liberty to call on him for an address. 
He said : — 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, anI) Gentlemen — I think if any body can plead im- 
munity from speaking here to-night, I certainly ought to be permitted to do so; for, 
sir, when 1 was invited, two or three days since, to come here on this occasion, and 
it was intimated that I might be called upon to "stand and deliver," I did not sup- 
pose the demand would be made to-night. I perfectly well recollect that on one 
occasion, when President Lincoln was situated somewhat as I am, he expecting to be 
called on to address some soldiers on the following day, was visited the evening before 
by a number of them, who wanted a speech. Said he, "Boys, how do you suppose 
I can speak to you to morrow if you draw it all out of me to-night'* " 

I am not a native of Winsted. From some things I have heard here to-night I 
could wish I were; but it is a very difficult feat, I know, for the boys to catch up with 
the fathers. I used to hear, in my boyhood days, of the prominent men of this 
section, and I thought that John Boyd, and the old brass-mounted abolitionists about 
here, und Methusaleh were among the oldest men known ; but when I come out here 
now I seem to be almost as old as John Boyd. 



580 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

I know there are many here who wish to speak to-night, and I will not occupy your 
time. I want just to say, in the name of the state and of New England, and of all 
that is valuable, that it is just such occasions as this that make the community. 
This New England has no second in the elements of national strength, and when we 
come together on an occasion like this, and see what the past generations have done, 
we see what wc ought to do ; we take the best position we can in a republic like ours, 
and learn to drop the had examples of the past, and go on to make the future better. 
And if Winchester can do any better in the future than she has done, I hope I may he 
Governor of Connecticut a hundred years hence, and meet her boys here to celebrate 
the next centennial. (Applause.) 

Dr. Pattkrson, in his seat, responding — It is pretty early to 
electioneer for that, Governor. 

The next speaker was Rev. C. H. A. Bulkley, of Malone, New 
York, a former pastor of the 2d Congregational Church, whose name, as 
announced by the president, was greeted with applause. He said : — 

As I came up these steps the chairman said to mc, " You can have the pulpit." I 
think if any one can claim this privilege it should be myself, because when this church 
was erected the only two privileges that I asked of the architect were, that 1 might 
have the direction of the ventilation of the church, and the construction of the pulpit. 
And my idea was to make it as much of a platform as of a pulpit. 

I am not a native of Winchester. I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, a fire 
eater, and all the good sense I have, if I have any, comes from my paternal ancestor, 
who was from the State of Connecticut. But to-night I find myself a sort of patriarch, 
as the founder of this West Winsted Church, and it is of this church that I can speak 
better, perhaps, than any one else not a resident here. I found that to-day every 
thing said with respect to the past was of the most agreeable kind, and every thing 
unpleasant was left entirely out of view. So, in my reminiscences of the past history 
of this church I shall leave out every thing that might be unpleasant to you or me in 
the recollection. 

I remember very well when I was asked to come; up here to Winsted. I was met 
in the city of New York by my good brother N. II. Eggleston, who said he had got 
into a dilemma, having a call to West Winsted, and another to Chicago, and he did 
not wish to come here and have the people become interested in him, as he preferred 
to go to Chicago. So he asked me to come here and take his place, as he had agreed 
to come and preach on the next Sabbath. 1 came here late Saturday, and I was 
directed to the house of my good friend, George Dudley, where I introduced myself 
and told him I was not Mr. Eggleston. You know how he has a way of shrugging 
up his shoulders. He washed his hands in invisible water, and rathei hesitating said, 
it had been advertised that Rev. Mr. Eggleston was to preach. I told him I would go 
on and preach, and lie need not say any thing more than that the minister had come, 
until it was all over, and then he could tell the people that the minister was not Mr. 
Eggleston. I must confess that (0111111- from New York, where the soil was so fertile 
and the fields so beautiful, 1 felt a little shrinking at the idea of coming to settle here. 
I remember, when coming in the stage coach, of meeting my good brother, Dr. 
Eldridge, and he related the story then new to me, of a man who when riding some- 
where in this vicinity inquired where they found the stones for the stone walls that 
were so plenty, and 011 being assured that they were taken from the adjoining fields 
e xpressed his doubts, as he could not perceive that any were missing from the fields. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 581 

The question was asked by a friend whether I would accept a call to this church, 
which was not then a church, not having been formed. I replied that I thought I 
could not, for I did not think the people could give the salary I thought I ought to have. 
" Why, how much do you suppose they will offer 1 " I said I thought that they would 
probably offer about $600 ; and I said I thought I could not stay for less than $1 ,000. 
A few days after a committee called on me to be the prospective pastor of the church at 
a salary of $1,000. I was, therefore, in a measure committed ; but I accepted the call, 
at $1,000, provided they would build me a church within a year. They gave a kind 
of provisional pledge, and after some little time I accepted the call, and came here just 
after there had been one of those damaging freshets in Mad Biver, and the roads were 
washed away and gullied out, and everything looked desolate and forlorn. I must 
confess my heart sank within me ; and my family especially thought they had come to 
a pretty dreary sort of country. 

But it did not prove so in the end ; for the blessing of God came, and the spirit of 
God was outpoured, and there were some pleasant conversions ; and when, about that 
time, I met with an accident, my good friend Mr. Winslow came to my assistance. 
But the great work done was in the revival of 1857-58. I remember very well that 
little school-house that stood on the promontory near the mill-pond. There was my 
study, in that little school-house; and the Methodist minister came to me and said, 
" The Lord is with us, and we want you to come and help us." I had been brought 
up under influences that made me think but little of the Methodists — I am ashamed 
to say — and I gave him the cold shoulder. But I finally went, and I saw that the 
Spirit of God was at work, and young men were bowing at the altar. This church 
was not then built, and we were worshiping in the hall. We had no place where we 
could meet except in private rooms ; and so we co-operated there at the Methodist 
church. The result was, to draw these two denominations more closely together. 
This church was organized, I think, in the Spring of 1854; and the number that 
joined with us by profession of faith or by letter, was fifty-eight. I think there were 
one hundred and fifty-seven names on the roll of this church when I left. 

I recollect a number of ladies got up an "old folks' kitchen," and they had a dance. 
Just think of it; that the Congregational church should have done such a thing! 
There was a man came in with bag-pipes, with legs exceedingly thin, that looked liko 
pipe stems ; and some lady of middle age got up and began to dance with him, but 
not very well. And old Mrs. Thayer, who had been on her bed for five weeks with 
rheumatism, had been taken out to see the old folks' kitchen ; and when she saw that 
the lady did not dance very well, Mrs. Thayer was quite indignant, and she took her 
dress in her hand and danced most vigorously with the gentleman ; and they had a 
real old-fashioned jig. The next Sunday the old gentleman came into church, and I 
saw his legs just as I saw them while he was dancing the jig ; and I had to put my face 
in my hands and laugh ; I was afraid I should laugh out in meeting. 

The catechism class was a pleasant feature of my work. I used to catechise the 
children, and have an annual exhibition, and I was astonished at the close of the 
second exhibition by a presentation of a gold-headed cane by a young lady. 

It was my great privilege to stand here, after this church was built, as the first min- 
ister who ever entered this pulpit. In the providence of God, I have been permitted 
to labor elsewhere; but have come back with a heart that is warm and full of Christian 
feeling towards all here. When here a few weeks ago, collecting some material for 
my poem, I was asked by a gentleman if I found anything to awaken poetry here, and 
I replied, " Oh, yes, the faces of my friends do that." My heart has been most ten- 
derly affected since I have been here now, as it was during that visit. I then had a 
deep sense of God's goodness ; and it came through the manifestations of affection by 

74 



582 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

this people towards me. And so, I have felt that to-night the words that I should 
speak must he with gratitude to God and thankfulness to these friends who have ever 
shown to me so much sympathy and love. (Applause.) 

The choir then sang, to the tune Mear, the hymn, " Let children hear 
the mighty deeds," &c. 

The President then said : Ladies and Gentlemen, we are very 
much obliged to you for your patient attention this evening. We have 
detained you longer than our usual wont. We have a hard day's work 
before us to-morrow, and we will now close. 

The Benediction was pronounced by Rev. Henry B. Blake, and the 
meeting adjourned till to-morrow morning. 



WINSTED, THURSDAY MORNING, AUG. 17th, 1871. 

This morning the town wore a festive appearance. The streets were 
thronged with thousands of people, and flags were flung to the breeze on 
every hand. There were many happy reunions. People who had not 
met for years greeted each other joyfully, and happiness beamed on every 
countenance. The oldest living native of Winchester, Deacon Ira Hills 
of Vernon, New York, was present, hale and hearty, at the age of 88 
years. And there were hundreds of the old residents from all over the 
country. The doors of the citizens were thrown hospitably open, and 
never was a more happy family gathered than that of old " Mother Win- 
chester" to-day. 

The procession formed at half-past 8, a. m., in front of Rockwell's 
Tannery, in the following order : 

Marshal— Col. Wheelock T. Batcheller. 

Aids— Col. Jeffrey Skinner and Porter S. Burrall. 

Gilbert Cornet Band. 

St. Andrew's Lodge, No. 64, A. F. & A. M. 

Historian, Poet, Ilis Excellency the Governor, and other speakers. 

Warden and Burgesses of the Borough of Winsted. 

Union Hose Co., No. 1. 

When the procession moved down Main street, it was joined at the 

Clark House, by 

Palmer Post G. A. R. 

Monitor Lodge I. 0. G. T. 

Bushnell Cornet Band of New Hartford. 

Deluge Hose Co. No. 2. 

At Oak street, by 

St. Patrick's Benevolent Society. 
St. Francis' T. A. B. Society. 



V Vice Presidents. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 583 

And at Park Place, by 

Niagara Hose Co. No. 3. 
Cascade Hose Co. No. 4. 
Citizens on horseback. 
Citizens on foot. 
And marched around the Park, thence up Main to Meadow, down 
Meadow to Monroe, through Monroe to Main, down Main to the front of 
the Methodist Church, where there was a stand erected, and thousands 
of people were assembled, the sheltering trees affording a sufficient can- 
opy to protect them from the August sun. An arch over the street bore 
the motto, " Winchester welcomes her children." The welcome was 
cordial indeed. 

The officers of the day were — 

William G. Coe, President. 
Reuben Cook, 
Jehiel Coe, 

Rev. Frederick Marsh, 
Beebe B. Rockwell, 
George Dudley, 
Oliver White, 

The President having called the vast assembly to order, delivered in 
an eloquent manner the following 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

The first duty assigned me, is to greet you, Sons and Daughters of Winchester, 
with cordial welcome. It is painful t > be able to command only common-place and 
stereotyped words to express the kindly emotions which your presence awakens. Be 
assured, however, that the occupants of the old homestead are joyous and happy over 
the return of the absent ones, and bid you all a sincere and heartfelt welcome. 

Time, here as elsewhere, supplemented by no little enterprise and public spirit, has 
wrought its changes, and many of you will find few landmarks to lead you back to 
scenes fast fading and soon to be past recall. Here and there you will meet some of 
the older children of the family, now aged and venerable, but without exception hon- 
ored and esteemed, who may prompt and refresh your memories. 

Our rugged old hill-sides, now perhaps more stern and forbidding than when you 
clambered over them, will to some of you be convincing witnesses of the wisdom 
which led you hence. 

An occasional old homestead, dwarfed in its proportions from childhood's estimate, 
and much less cheery and inviting, may still be found. 

The old red school-house, dreary and uncomfortable, is replaced by one of ampler 
proportions and luxurious appointments. And of the old church, naught but its 
stately pulpit, in the barn-yard museum of our venerable townsman, Jesse Williams, 
exists. 

Our forests have disappeared at the beck of the manufacturer, and our waters are 
utilized and controlled by the .same power. 



584 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

To view these changes, to re-visit old scenes, renew old friendships, to collate and 
preserve the early history of Winchester, to recall the memories and deeds of its 
settlers, to quicken our appreciation of their virtues, to join in social pleasures, to 
gather up and re-unite the broken threads of friendship and consanguinity, to link 
the past of the old township to the present, we have hid you meet us to-day. And 
when these public exercises shall have closed, a fraternal greeting will await you at 
our homes and firesides. 

Rev. Asatiel C. Eggleston, of Hartford, was then introduced to 
conduct the devotional exercises, remarking to the audience, that it was 
an old-time custom to open all exercises of our congregations with prayer, 
the audience rising. Let us rise and give God thanks. 



PRAYER. 

01), our God, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 
From everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. A thousand years in Thy 
sight are but as yesterday when it is past. We humble ourselves this day 
beneath Thine exalted hand as we are gathered here on this centennial 
occasion. Thou art the living God ; Thou wast our father's God ; Thou art 
our God. This day do we acknowledge Thee. This day would we praise' 
and laud and magnify Thy holy name. We bless Thee for Thy mercies 
shown towards our fathers ; we thank Thee for the history of the past ; we 
thank Thee that Thou leddest them through the great sea, and that Thou 
didst establish them in this land, driving out the inhabitants thereof before 
them, and making their enemies to be at peace with them, and giving 
them prosperity until a little one has become a great nation. We bless 
Thee for the holy memories that come to us this day. We thank Thee 
for the goodly heritage of our fathers ; we bless Thee for the grace given 
to them, as manifested by their humble faith and trust in Thy Holy Word, 
for their keeping of Thy Sabbath, for their regard for Thy worship, for 
their faithful lives of righteousness, equity, justice, and judgment. 

Blessed be Thy name, oh God, for this heritage, which has thus come 
down to us ; and we bless Thy name for the excellent institutions of our 
country which have come to us from our fathers, and which make our 
land the desire of all the earth. We humble ourselves before Thee, for 
we fear we have not loved Thee as did our fathers. We have not always 
exhibited the same integrity; we have not so honored Thy Sabbaths, wo 
fear; we have not so regarded Thy worship and Thy holy altars. 

We thank Thee, oh Lord our God, for Thy mercies towards us; pardon 
us now as we humble ourselves before Thee, seeking that pardon in the 
name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let Thy blessing, O Lord, be upon us 
in all these centennial exercises; and grant unto us Thy grace; for well 
we know that, although we rejoice in the blessings of the past, and indulge 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 585 

bright hopes of the future, these hopes will not end in fruition unless the 
blessing of the Lord our God be upon us. And we pray for Thy blessing 
upon this whole community and all our citizens. May we all learn to 
love righteousness, to love Thy holy law, to keep Thy Sabbaths, that in 
all things we may regard Thee and follow Thy commands. 

Bless all the citizens in this community in all their industrial pursuits, 
in all business arrangements, in all commercial enterprises. Let. them 
enjoy length of days, with a goodly heritage, and with freedom from great 
and unusual calamities, as individuals ; let Thy grace turn all our hearts 
from sin and lead us to righteousness and unfeigned faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

Again we thank Thee for this occasion, for this bright and beautiful 
day, for the joyful remembrances of the past and the brighter hopes of 
the future, while we invoke Thy continued blessings upon us through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Thk President. — The only person living who can write the history 
of Winchester is John Boyd. For his unwearied research and effort in 
this direction, it is proper that every native of Winchester should pay 
him the debt of gratitude they owe. It is my pleasure to present him to 
you to-day as our historian. 

Hon. John Boyd. — Mr. President, I disclaim the merits attributed to 
me, and beg leave to say that neither power of voice nor my physical 
condition will enable me to make myself heard, even by the smallest part 
of this audience, and I therefore ask the privilege of appearing before you 
this day by proxy. I have therefore requested my friend, Mr. Forbes, 
to read my address, assisted by Mr. Hubbard. I ask attention to the 
reading of the first part by Mr. Forbes. 

Rev. S. B. Forbes. — Ladies and Gentlemen: It is proper that I 
should say, in behalf of the writer of this address, that if it seems broken, 
it is because its great length forbids that only fragments should be read 
to-day. 

Mr. Forbes then commenced the reading of the portion of the address 
assigned for the day, and Mr. Stephen A. Hubbard, of the Hartford 
Courant, read the concluding portion. 

The address, which occupied an hour and a quarter in reading, is not 
here printed, for the reason that it is a digest of the author's history 
of the town, and would involve a repetition of what is herewith published 
as the main part of this book. 

After a chorus by a choir selected for the day, the exercises of the fore- 
noon were closed, and an hour was spent in partaking of an excellent col- 
lation, and in more direct personal and social interviews and greetings 
among old friends, who had not, in some cases, met for years. It was a 
happy hour. 



586 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 

After the audience was called to order again by the President, and after 
music by the band, the Poet of the occasion, Rev. C. H. A. Bulkley, of 
Malone, N. Y., was introduced, who remarked that lie was largely in- 
debted to the historical notes of Hon. John Boyd for the material of his 
poem ; and proceeded to deliver, in a clear voice and with much energy 
of manner, the following 

POEM. 

A RHYME OF WINCHESTER. 

Why all this crowd and pinch and stir 
In our old town of Winchester? 
Why speech and song and heart-true chime 
Here, in the hot mid-summer time? 
Why ripple laughs and shouts, like rills, 
Amid these rock-ribbed Litchfield hills? 
Why come these sons and daughters far 
From homes of peace or fields of war, 
From prairies or Pacific slopes, 
With planter's gains or miner's hopes, 
From Southern plains or Northern mounts? 
From commerce marts or wisdom founts? 
With grasping hand and greeting word, 
Why are their hearts so deeply stirred, 
Their eyes so tearful, yet so bright, 
Their lips so trembling at the sight 
Of once smooth cheeks by Time's hand wrinkled, 
And brows with locks of silver sprinkled ? 

To-day, swift steeds of memory travel hack 
A hundred miles of fruitful years, 
Faster than steam car on the iron track, 
To bring the thoughts, the hopes, the fears, 
The joys and griefs that heap the piers 
Of that far time, the precious freight 
Of lives long passed beyond death's gate, 
That now on our remembrance wait. 

A hundred years ! battalion strong 

< >f veterans, on our hearts they throng. 
Marshaled in ancient, homespun uniform, 

After the end of life's hard strife and storm, 

To tell of toils, of victories and defeats, 

A century through ; when cither war's fierce heats 

< >r ai'ts of rugged peace dropped -rain or grime 
From off the changing pendulum of time. 
What changes, in those years of five score span, 
II ive marked the face of nature and of man! 
Here, th • in le region, ere their steps began, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 587 

Lay a huge giant, with his granite arms 
Clad in the verdure of the forest's charms, 
The pine and hemlock, chestnut, oak and beech, 
'Mid which the Indian waked the panther's screech, 
Chased frighted deer, the wildcat and the bear, 
With their warm fur to fight the frosty air. 
No meadows rich, no uplands smooth and fair, 
No prairies wide gave grain with little care; 
The rucks, where sheep could but bill noses ply, 
Said to the emigrant, " Root, hog, or die ! " 

Bold, sturdy men and women were they, 
Who felt that life was no time for play, 

When they braved this rocky region, 
They delved 'mid dangers without dismay, 
They sweetly slept on brush or hay, 

Though their troubles counted legion ; 
They lived on mush from Indian maize, 
And scared off wolves with hemlock blaze, 
And kept hearts strong with godly praise, 

Sustained by their religion. 

In homespun style they cured their pork, 

And ate it without silver fork ; 

They shaved their shingles, split their laths, 

Cut timber from their forest paths, 

Built their rude kilns, made their own lime, 

And raised their log house in due time. 

Their wives, because sometimes so fat, 

Were their own cheese-press, when they sat ; 

Their children were well-spanked and rocked, 

Their boys well-breeched, their girls well frocked 

Erom wool, all carded, spun and wove 

By their own hands with hearts of love. 

They talked not then of " women's rights," 
From pulpit-desks or platform-heights ; 
They were more proud to make a coat 
Or pair of pants than shave a note ; 
To overcast, than cast a vote ; 
Their candles, soap, and flaxen cloth, 
Their woolen garments, kept from moth, 
They deemed more worthy man's true praise, 
Than soft soap speech or fluxing phrase ; 
They never dreamed of "free love" things, 
Nor thought to break their marriage strings, 
But loved their husbands and obeyed 
God's law, in giving birth to aid 
The nation by a sturdy race, 
Not having learned the modern grace 
To shirk the mother's care and cheat 
The nurse and doctor of their meat. 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

They were a race prolific ; many a Cook, 
Who boiled his beans beside the babbling brook; 
A IIandee, handy at the hoe or plough, 
A Steele, who dared not steal his neighbor's cow, 
A Burr, who stuck to labor, friends, and life, 
A Hart, who bore all heart felt cares and strife; 
A Rogers, who could use, not make a knite, 
A Batchellkr, who yet could boast a wife; 
A Holmes, who had no homes that he could spare, 
A Barnes, whose barns were yet unraised in air; 
And there were Bulls that never lifted horn; 
Their babes, no calves, save when of cows, were born ; 
And Rockwells, cool as wells within a rock; 
Masons, who built no brick and mortar block, 
Cases, that doctored many a sickly case, 
Parsons, who never preached with godly grace; 
Shepherds, whoso flocks were not all sheep of price, 
Smiths, who at no anvil wrought, or vise ; 
Arnolds, who turned not traitors to the land, 
Potters, who worked no clay with wheel and band ; 
IIinsdales, who in dales or on rocks could roam, 
Hills, who on hill-tops found a fitting home; 
Waicefields, all wakeful on the field of death, 
Clarices ne'er responsive to a prelate's breath; 
Mills that went not by water or by steam ; 
And IIolabirds who gave no hollow scream. 

Time fails for all the names to come to light, 

Of Wrights who were not always in the right; 

Doolittles, busy every shining hour, 

Or Sweets, sometimes a very little sour; 

How many to our day, not least, but last, 

Have through the changing generations passed; 

The Beardslets, Alvords, Gilberts, Phelps, and Cahfi 

Who, history says, were neither saints nor scamps, 

But men, who o'er life's way in toilsome tramps, 

Like us, felt Heaven's warm rays or earth's chill damps ; 

Welches, hereditary doctors, who 

Though quick to physic, slowly come to you, 

Whose doses on their patients' stomachs sit 

No! ijuitc so pleasing as a " Welsh rarebit." 

Oh! that I could each Coc and Boyd and Hall 

Out of their resting places loudly call, 

And bid them stand, a "goodlie eoinpanic," 

In all their primal power and parity ; 

How then to them most reverently we'd bow, 

Those spirits of the just made perfect now, 

Those sires whose sons are here together met, 

'1 heir virtues to recall, their faults forget. 

Why were they brave and strong? 
What made them true and pure ! 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 589 

How dared they thus the throng 
Of life's hard ills endure ? 

Lo ! there the answer see ! 

Where by the village-green, 
The School and Church agree 

To shed on them Truth's sheen. 

There stands the meeting-house with low steeped roof, 

From which no sceptic soul dare keep aloof; 

Upon the hill-side, like a beacon-light, 

It rises sacredly in human sight, 

Built on great chestnut logs instead of stones, 

With rough plank seats that pain the nether bones ; 

The gallery, reached by ladder, opes its floor, 

Through whose great gap the Parson's thunders pour; 

No paint, or plaster, ceiling, organ-loft, 

No carpet, curtain, cushion, rich and soft, 

Tempts the stern sense of zealous Puritan ; 

No heating stove kindles his angry ban ; 

His zeal is all-sufficient fire to warm 

His body and his soul from wintry storm, 

He needs no carnal coals to melt the form 

Of sin or snow while hell-fire fears up-swarm. 

Sound doctrines furnish fuel, always strong ; 

His orthodoxy bars out ill and wrong ; 

Only the weakly women, more in sin, 

There footstoves bring and lay beneath the shin, 

To warm the inner heart and outer skin. — 

But in due time, as cash increases, 
From all their harvests and their fleeces, 
Another meeting-house arises, 
Bringing to all some dreadful crises. 
They meet, they talk ;— alas ! what fightings, 
What bitter words, what sad bf.ckbitings, 
What rousings of their saintly mettle, 
What pullings here and there to settle 
The question grand of Church-erection ; 
Almost to schism and defection, 
Those sires, so orthodox, are hitching, 
Where they the church-stake sh'd be pitching ; 
Now here 'tis down, now there uptaken, 
To-day, their spirits calm are shaken, 
Now stubborn, silent, now discussing, 
Now praying and now almost ' cussin ' 
Over the stake that keeps on walking 
From point to point while they keep talking. 
A martyr-stake well high becoming 
Amid such strife, so soul-benumbing. 
At last,— in some more happy hour, 
The stake is fixed, by sovereign power. 

75 



590 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Then in the forests ply the axes, 
Then from the pockets pours the tuxes, 
Then lotteries with their funds are streaming, 
And workmen in their sweat are steaming. 
The structure grandly grows and towers, 
'Mid hopes of future gracious showers. — 
Within are high-backed pews to keep 
The worshipers from sinful sleep. 
The pulpit, on a pillar placed, 
Eight-square and ten feet tall, is braced 
By cork-screw stair-ways on each side ; 
While high o'er all, in sacred pride, 
With threatening look, the sounding hoard, 
Hangs stern, like Damoclesian sword, 
Filling the sinner oft with dread 
Of holy Justice, on his head, 
Though wickid urchins sometimes prate 
Of hopes 'twould crush the parson's pate ! 
Above, the gallery, ox-bowed, bends, 
Whence nasal strains the singer sends, 
When, deaconed oat by drawling tongue, 
The hymn in old fugue tune is sung, 
The key-note sounded, clear and good, 
By Leader from pitch-pipe of wood. — 

'Tis Sabbath-time ; begun last eve, 
When happy boys were made to grieve 
That Saturday was o'er, and shades 
Crept up the hill-sides. Swiftly fades 
The play-time light; five stars are out ; 
Now all must leave the bat and bout, 
Shoes must be blacked and laid in row, 
Washings be made from head to toe, 
Clothes brushed and hairy knots combed out, 
To save the nails of scratching lout. 

Now'dawns the sacred day ; the sire 
And matron, filled with holy fire, 
Gather their tribe at morning prayer, 
Bid them nor lie nor steal nor swear, 
Their psalm and catechism hear; — 
For meeting now they all prepare, 
In ox-cart or on foot repair, 
While " Pa" and "Ma," upon the mare, 
On saddle and on pillion ride, 
As erst they did when groom and bride, 
Each one, to meet his waking need, 
Bearing a bunch of fennel-seed. — 

The meeting house is filled with sober faces, 
The older taking all the forward places, 
The younger, in the back or gallery Bitting, 
Kept by the tithing man from talk and spitting. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 691 

Oh ! what a terror he, whose hand is itching 
To give some urchin wild a birch rod switching, 
Who well deserves the keenest kind of whacking, 
For cracking nuts, and other sorts of cracking. 

The Parson comes ! the church-yard throng 
Opens for him to pass along; 
Loud whispers sound—" Hats off, ye boys, 
Girls, ' show your manners, stop your noise.' " 
They bow and curtesy low to him, 
Great bugbear to each Satan's limh. 
A wide, shad-bellied coat he wears, 
His head, a broad brimmed cocked-hat tears, 
'Neath which a white wig flows full down, 
As if a sheep's back were his crown ; 
His small clothe?, like his coat, are brown 
From butternut, like good-wife's gown ; 
With silver buckles, striped hose, 
And top-boots to contain his toes, 
He mounts the pulpit, like a pope, 
Inspires with dread, yet talks of hope, 
Prays as if God were far away, 
Yet calls him father of our clay. 
Doctrines as sound and hard as rock, 
He hurls with logic on his flock, 
Who, by the hour-glass patient sit, 
With nods approve the heaviest hit, 
And smile, as they the meeting quit, 
That sinners icere sent to the pit, 
And saints but scarcely saved from it. 

Yet justice bids that I should say, 

Not thus they all did preach and pray 

Though each his faults and graces had, 

Who, like us all, mixed good and bad. 

There were Woodworth and Kinney and wordful Knapp, 

Whose sermons came forth with an eloquent snap, 

That gave his dull hearers a wakening rap ; 

There was Booge, tall and handsome and straight as a pillar, 

And Bassett, full sound, though in love with the "siller," 

And Beach the rue father whose children find Camps 

That honor his graces and gather the stamps, 

And he whom we welcome to-day, Parson Marsh, 

Ever true, ever good, oft severe, but ne'er harsh, 

And Petti bone, not of a ■petty bone frame, 

With back bone enough for a martyr's name, 

Who cared not for tongues and feared not the flame 

Of hate, for the love of the good Pastor's fame. 

I might be personal to speak of others 
Who were my compeers and dear brothers, 
So let us back again to those old days, 



592 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

And learn still more their quaintly ways. 
The meeting done, the crowd outpours, 
They stand in knots, hy tens and scores, 
Or gather in the Sahhath-house, 
To eat their lunch, hut ne'er carouse, 
Talking their politics and doctrines o'er, 
Counting their crops and live stock store, 
Amid discussions oft irate, 
Of foredoom, faith, freewill, and fate. 

The second session o'er, they go 
As came they there, thoughtful and slow, 
Homeward to finish Sahhath-work, 
To dine on cold baked beans and pork, 
Till sundown comes, when Sabbath ends, 
And hoys are glad, and thought unbends; 
When spruced up lover quickly wends 
His way to her with whom he spends, 
Till midnight hour, the sparking time, 
In talk that tells the heart's true chime. 
Oh ! days of primal, purest love ! 
When, simple as the mated dove, 
Uncursed by Fashion's foolish ways, 
Young hearts rejoiced, in homely phrase 
To speak of marriage without shame; 
Sought not for gold, or style, or fame, 
And gladly heard their coupled name, 
Published from pnlpit, when 'twas said, 
On such a day they would be wed. 

Oh ! happy time, when cakes and beer, 
And " apple-sass," made nuptial cheer, 
When earthen ware and pewter spoons, 
And frying pans sang home's sweet tunes, 
When wash-tubs were a woman's shrines, 
Her pride the clean clothes on the lines. 
Her sheets and bed-quilts, near a score, 
On closet-shelves kept well in store ! 

Alas ! the lover now must bring 
The maid's left hand a diamond ring, 
And weddings, secret long as may, 
Must show their gold and silver tray 
Full of rich gifts from " Ball and Black ; " 
When groom and bride must take the track, 
And ride to Canada and back, 
Ere settling down, nor ever lack 
The coach and team with hoofs so qnick, 
And liveried driver dressed so slick, 
And house of browns tone or of brick. 
Unless they wish it said aloud 
That they arc of the common crowd. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 593 

In those days scarce was silver in their tills, 
Worthless were all their Continental bills, 
Their specie was in rye and corn and lard, 
In pork and beans ; the parson's pay came hard 
In tallow, snet, beef and wool and flax, 
From every househould brought by stated tax, 
For which he must well flax his flock for sin, 
And they in turn might flax his heart within. 

It was a question though, as to the whether, 
His or the school-master's were toughest leather ; 
Who, hapless wretch, for dull and heart-sore teaching, 
Was boarded round by folks sometimes o'erreaching, 
Was hounded much by urchins full of evil, 
Whose nether ends seemed hung upon a swivel. 

Poor little devils ! Ah ! 'tis not much wonder 
They could not sit still at his voice of thunder; 
Since such hard seats, such air to lungs defiling, 
Such winsome girls before them sweetly smiling, 
Made them, in spite of all their wills, so frisky, 
E'en though to stir they knew was dreadful risky ; 
For, Oh ! those nine-tails made of knotted leather, 
Would then come down upon their tender nether! 
Relieved from study, how upon the green, 
Barefooted, hatless, rushing are they seen, 
Playing at leap-frog, base-ball, snap-the-whip, 
The girls at mulberry bush and hop and skip. 

Oh ! days of that far childhood, who'd not give, 
The wealth of Ind, in such a time to live, 
When bliss it was to roll In new-mown hay, 
When butter-cups were gems of purest ray, 
When daisies drove away the darkest gloom, 
And sweetest perfume breathed from clover-bloom ; 
What joy was theirs when training day came round, 
When fife and drum made stirring martial sound ; 
The village green from fences then was cleared, 
Full tables in the orchard near appeared, 
And ladies, in their lute-strings lovely stood, 
To serve the " sojers " with their cakes so good ; 
The " Kurnel" on his prancing charger came, 
With ostrich-plume borrowed from stylish dame, 
His coat of blue all decked with golden lace, 
And big brass buttons shining like his face ; 
His cocked hat nodding o'er his sword and sash, 
As thro' the hollow-square he made a dash, 
'Mid veterans who could give the war salute, 
Play Indian with his whoop, and shoot 
The bow or musket, with an equal skill, 
To face the foe, but no one ever kill. 
What sham fights then were seen when guns went off, 



594 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

And swords were flashed with tongues, as if in scoff, 
Arid sweat ran freely in the stead of blood ; 
When cider flowed for thirst, in yellow flood, 
And old mctheglin toddy made a muddle 
Amid the ranks, because some brains 'twould fuddle. 

As grand a time they had when came 
"The glorious Fourth " with Freedom's name, 
When Captain Bunnell's big train-band 
Their four-pound field-piece drew by hand, 
At dawn, at noon, at evening fired, 
Till patriot hearts were full inspired. 

The grand procession, with each guest, 
Poet and Orator to do his best, 
With President, and all the rest, 
Moves to the meeting-house ; each head, 
Uncovered, bows when prayers are said; 
Hearts gladden at each patriot-word, 
And when the old fugue tunes are heard. 

The feast of fat things comes thereafter, 
With ready speech and ringing laughter, 
While rich baked meats, without sharp mustard, 
With Indian puddings, pies of custard, 
Are cat with eager gusto greater 
Than ever comes with luxuries later; 
All which proceedings, histories warrant, 
Were printed in the Hartford Cowrant. 

Those voices, ending with the sun, 
Were echoed by that ancient gun, 
Which, since the century's evolution, 
In French war or the Revolution, 
From Cobble Hill has poured its thunder; 
The dread of girls, of boys the wonder, 
The foe of many an ancient maiden, 
Who by its tones with nerves were laden, 
And hid it in their little garden, 
Where found, it came forth as the warden 
Of Freedom 'gainst all Federal brewing, 
Lest they should pull her pole to ruin. 
That ancient gun ! how oft 'twas crammed, 
With powder to its muzzle rammed, 
When Democrats or Whigs were found 
To give "darned" Radicals the fits, 
And scare their abolition-wits. 

Why burst it not to atoms then, 
When crammed and rammed by hateful nun ! 
( >h I 'twas the nation's type of life, 
Which no foul play or venom-strife, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 595 

No fullest charge of ill could break ; 
Its heaviest thunder could hut wake 
The love of freedom till it rolls 
In fullest tones o'er patriot-souls. 

For, in the century's early time 

They heard her call to blood and grime, 

And deemed it but a duty-chime ; 

They answered her at Lexington, 

They were of troops who victory won 

At Saratoga, o'er Burgoyne, 

Who fought forking and British coin, 

Whose troops, defeated, o'er these ways 

Were marched by men we love to praise. 

Since then, heroic souls, like them were found, 
When sadly came the Smith's rebellion sound, 
They poured from Winchester with shout and song ; 
A brave battalion, full three hundred strong ; 
By Skinner led, by Eddy prayed for well, 
Sworn ne'er to hear their country's funeral knell ; 
They fought, they bled, alas, too many fell ; — 
Freedom's true sons, they rest where then they died ; 
Or in yon grave-yard, honored, side by side ; 
Sad memory weeps for them ; sweet flowers we strew, 
To thank them for our joys, they never knew ; 
Their names are sacred ; in our heart's deep place 
We walk with them in friendship face to face. 
Lo ! Arnold comes, soon as the nation calls, 
No traitor, — he, at Cedar Mountain, falls. 
Brown, who to meet his comrade's thirsting quest 
Receives the rebel bullet in his breast, 
A Christian soldier, glad for life's war done, 
If dying he may see the victory. won ; 
Bellows, who perished at the Hampton fight, 
Baldwin, who, e'er struck down, could calmly write, 
" Soon, at Cold Harbor, into strife we go, 
If shot, 't will be with faces to the foe !"* 
That son of Afric, Dolphin, shows the fire 
Most worthy of his Revolution-sire ; 
Hosford at Cedar Creek ; — at Sharpsburg too, 
Cogswell and Dayton perish, brave and true ; 
Downs, Ferris, Gibbs, and Griien; — the list they swell, 
With Palmer, Commins, Daniels, all who fell 
♦ Upon the field. Not less heroic they 
Who sadly pined in hospital away ; 
Benton and Barker, and a score beside, 
The gentle Sdrgeon Welch, who early died. 
We honor them, proud of their hero-fame, 
We gladly speak each soldier's worthy name ; 

* Written, in substance, to his mother, on the day before the battle of Cold Harbor. 



596 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Not less we honor those who live to-day, 
Sere with us met, or from us far away. 
Ye sons of Freedom, hearts of patriot-power, 
Wc greet you here, we crown you in this hour; 
We give you thanks for toils and wounds endured, 
By which the nation's weal was well secured ; 
With ancient worthies we your names unite, 
And on the scroll of fame your record write. 

Like them, with souls that feared no terror-shape, 
You met the rebels' sword, and gun, and grape ; 
You flung fair Freedom's red-barred banner out, 
Starred from the sky amid the angel's shout, 
And to our sons, an heir-loom rich and grand, 
( lave it to wave it o'er a ransomed land 
Alas ! that men, along the Southern sand, 
A reckless crew, a wild, rebellious band, 
Should thus hive striven, by Slavery's brazen hand, 
* Basely to unwind Liberty's strong strand, 
And rend in twain her banner and her land ! 
From mountain top, and citadel, and fort, 
From village-belfry, and from ocean-port, 
They tore it down with passion's wildest gust, 
And trailed its tattered fragments in the dust. 

But, roused to wrath, you, sons of Northern sires, 
Marshaled your hosts and built your battle-fires, 
Trampled on traitors in their march of power, 
Made ranks of hate before your courage cower, 
And smote the hands that forged the bondman's chain, 
Till Freedom's songs, as erst, were sung again, 
And every link of wrong, o'er hell's dark brink, 
Was hurled forever in its depths to sink, 
While up and high that blazing banner went, 
Blood-stained, yet beautiful, though bullet-rent, 
To win new star-beams from the azure sky, 
And drink fresh hues from Freedom's sun-dipped dye. 

Float on forever ! Oh thou flag of God ! 

O'er paths these hero-feet have boldly trod, 

O'er homes where martyr-souls have bled and wept, 

While fur the dead their vigils long were kept, 

O'er graves that cluster countless on the fields 

Where to the brave, love all her homage yields. 

Float on forever, in thy might and pride, 
The glory-shroud for those who 'neath thee died, 
The Hag to which the living all things gave, 
To make thy stripes. — O banner of the brave, 
The flush and fairness of perpetual youth, 
Thy stars all blended in one Star of Truth. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 597 

Grim war, gray Time, and Art's deft hand, 

Have stamped deep changes on the land ; 

Mansions of elegance and mark, 

Stand where was raised the roof of bark ; 

Churches of cost lift lofty spires, 

And breathe with warmth from furnace fires, 

Where meeting-houses, rude and old, 

Through gaping cracks let in the cold ; 

The organ's deep tones sound the stave 

Where pitch-pipes erst the key-note gave ; 

The cushioned seats invite to sleep, 

The parson makes few sinners weep ; 

In varnished carriages these ride 

To church and back again in pride, 

Decked with fine silks and broadcloth rich, 

Made by the strong machine's swift stitch ; 

A thousand spindles, in great rooms, 

Weave fabrics fine from scores of looms; — 

The blacksmith's shop, which every boy 

Peeped into with a wondering joy, 

To mills and foundries huge gives place, 

And factories line the lengthened race, 

Where chisels, scythes, and knives outpour 

To cut and carve the wide world o'er, 

Where ploughs and clocks come forth from grime, 

To till the soil aud tell the time. 

Poor lunatics for board aud bed, 
Once auctioned off so much a head, 
Are cared for in asylum halls ; 
The whipping post no more appals; 
The only " Stocks " that now hold men 
Are issued from some Wall-street den ; 
State prisons stand with walls of stone, 
To make the lawless fear and groan ; 
Turnpikes are turned to railroad tracks, 
That tear our front yards into racks; 
In cars and not on horses' backs, 
Men mostly ride, and women find 
No fun on pillions placed behind, 
But rather run the risk of smash, 
Than fail to make the swiftest dash, 
And fond of blowing up their own, 
Oft find themselves by steam upblown. 

The Doctor, in those days of old, 
On Narragansctt steed behold! 
His leathern saddle-bags he fills 
With plasters, powders, and with pills, 
All made in doses big enough 
A corps of cavalry to stuff, 
His stirrups short bring up his kneea 



76 



598 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

At angles with his saddle trees, 
And th us he rides, by night and day, 
To kill or cure, and get liis pay 
In cheese or pumpkins, corn or hay. 

The modern Doctor in his gig, 
AVith team and harness, best of rig, 
Dispenses finer, smaller pills, 
And sends in oft the biggest hills, 
To he all paid in pood greenbacks, 
Unless we choose the cheaper quacks* 

The Lawyer, politic or proud, 
Still oracle to all the crowd, 
Looks out with hawk-eve for his prey, 
To yet from clients richer pay ; 
E'en parsons preach and pray full well, 
When salaries fat their pockets swell, 
And worshipers in peace are hent, 
If they for cash get twelve per cent ! 

The old economy of life 
When, as 'twas said, to kiss his wife 
On Sabbath-day a man was fined, 
Is somewhat changed ; men now scarce mind 
Week days to ki^s their wives enough ; 
But more delight in other stuff, 
And oftener kiss s"bme lawless lips, 
Or make a few frail " frcedove" slips ; 
Wives get divorce, through lawyers hold, 
From hushands who refuse them gold, 
Fortunes are made b» hook or crook, 
Seldom by rules of Heaven's own Book ; 
And Sabbaths arc not strictly kept, 
As when, if e'er we played or slept, 
Into hay-mows or nut-trees crept, 
We felt the rod and sorely wept; 
When, as 'tis said, barrels were whipt 
For working beer in cellar crypt, 
Whipt now that they may work the more, 
And fuller make the beer outpour. 

The Parson comes, no demi god of fright, 
With name to silence children in the night; 
He questions not with catechism dread 
To pound sound doctrine in the urchin's head; 
His frown gives inn tin' sinner Sinai-quakes, 
His hand the sword of justice seldom shakes; 
With white cravat anil ivory headed cane, 
He moves nu more, of youthful joys the bane, 
Less pope and ruler; more the equal friend, 
He teaches how those joys with Heaven's to blend, 
And thither pleasantly our footsteps bend. 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 599 

Not yet forgot are old " Thanksgiving-days," 
Though spent with more of guzzling than of praise ; 
The sermon finds its hearers, few and dull, 
But turkeys lack no eaters to the full ; 
Our children's stomachs, like those of our sires, 
Need to be greased and stretched at kitchen fires; 
And night-mares horrible disturb our rest, 
With giant chicken-pies upon our breast, 
Oysters and lobsters ope their shelly jaws, 
Snapping at us for breaking Nature's laws. 

But conscience makes things equal now we think, 
For gin-slings, toddies, and each fuddling drink 
Curse not the festive board or burn the brain, 
And thus our age hath made some social gain. 
Oh ! that from low saloon and tavern-room, 
Such evil spirits might be hurled to gloom, 
Or only used when mixed with poison lead, 
To kill the bugs that blight the traveler's bed. 

The land is free ; it feels no curse of Cain, 
Free let it be from vice and sordid gain, 
Free from the rule of rascals and of rum, 
Free from the martial din of fife and drum, 
Free from the bands of party-power and strife, 
From bigot hands with persecution rife, 
From trueklings low of office-men of note, 
Who throw a sop to Cerberus for his vote ; 
Why should not we make all these hill tops ring 
With Freedom's fullest music while we sing ? 

Freely the sweet lark springs from earth, 

To sing his matin song of mirth, 

And plays amid the gathered dew 

That white clouds hold in th' ether blue ; 

Freely the cool drops fall to earth, 

O'er fonts where first they gushed to birth ; 

That like the tinkling feet of fay, 

In shades and moonbeams chainless play. 

Freely the light of sun and star 
Through myriad worlds of space from far, 
Journeys along the paths of God, 
Alone by angel footsteps trod ; 
Freely the sea's white surges pour, 
O'er sandy beach and rocky shore, 
Where in its depths of skiey blue, 
The dolphin plays with changing hue. 

Freely through woods or over waves, 
The zephyr breathes or storm-wind raves, 
Each quivering leaf a pulse of life, 
Or every tree a foe in strife ; 



600 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Freely the heart within us heats, 
The ear sweet tones of nature greets-, 
The eye, all beauteous things beholds, 
The memory every joy unfolds. 

Freely all things of being seem 

To bring the end of life's sweet dream; 

Why should not we, with all things be 

In hody and in spirit free 1 

Oh ! may the high, benignant God, 

Ordain to break each tyrant-rod, 

And teach our souls for aye to hate 

The abject lot and servile state ! 

The free-born voter yet may go 

With ballot to the polls, e'en though 

Election sermons, balls, and cake, 

No thoughts of old and young awake; 

These ancient ways leave us to find 

Joys other than theirs left behind. 

The four horse stage-coach comes no more, 

" Old line an© new," — to many a score 

Of gaping villagers a thing of pride, 

In which to take a wedding ride 

Was bliss indeed for rustic bride, 

Whom Hartford merchants could but bless, 

In selling her a marriage-dress. 

The driver's horn, with shrilling toot, 

The urchins hanging to the boot, 

The letters, bundles, papers, all 

For which each eager lip would call, 

Are of the past ; and in their place 

The locomotive runs its race, 

With mail-ear and the express-train, 

And crowds, for pleasure or for gain ; 

The steam-pipes shriek, the smoke, and rush, 

The start, and sometimes fearful crush ; 

The hurry, scurry, flurry, here 

And there, of throngs from far and near, — 

Oh ! how unlike arc all these ways 

To those that charmed our boyhood's days ; 

They wake sensations wild and bold, 

But bring not half the bliss of old ! 

Oh! the huskings and the quiltings, 
And the bussings and the jiltings, 
And the baggings and the hidings 
In the hay-loft, and the hidings 
By the gate in evenings starry, 
Where 'twas bliss with one to tarry 
Near to midnight, — whom to marry 
Was we thought, a life-long blessing 
Made np only of caressing, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. (J01 

With no ills for our confessing, 
Needing not the law's redressing. 

Loving lips that trembled greeting, 
Finger-tips that tingled meeting, 
Horseback trips with maiden rider, 
Autumn straws for sucking cider, 
Nutting days and squirrel chasing, 
Blind man's buff with warm embracing, 
Feats of fun and youthful daring, 
Talking times 'of apple-paring, 
Sharp snow-balling, and the boasting 
Over sleds the swiftest coasting; — 
These for us the years are bearing 
To the past, always unsparing ! 

Over yon grave-yard, where each tomb 
A marble record gives of gloom, 
We wander sadly, reading names 
Of those with whom we cherished aims 
Of future good and glorious fames, 
Or talked our boyish mischiefs o'er, 
And shared the orchard's stolen store ; 
Oh ! as we think of them, the waves 
Of memory surge up o'er their graves, 
And from each heart this sad lament 
Tells of a love as yet unspent. 

Ye days of blessed boyhood ! 

The better time of life ! 
Now lost amid the whirlpool 

Of earth's absorbing strife ! 
Ah ! never more returning, 

Its halcyon moments come, 
For toward old age a pilgrim, 

'Tis journeying from its home ! 

Far fled art thou, my boyhood ! 

I miss your morning sheen, 
With eyes all dim and tearful, 

Though fruitlessly I ween ; 
For gone with years departed, 

Are all its joys and hopes, 
Since life has changed to manhood, 

And thro' dark caverns gropes. 

I grieve o'er thee, my boyhood ! 

I want your bounding heart, 
Your shout of gleeful music 

That made old bosoms start; 
I want your step elastic, 

Your buoyancy of hope, 
Your oft unrivaled vigor, 

That with each arm could cope. 



602 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Oh ! I am lone, my boyhood ! 
Where are my playmate friends, 

Who with me blithely sported 
O'er all these hills and glens ? 

Where is the bird-like echo 
Of all their uttered joys 1 

Where are their jocund faces 1 
Where are those happy boys ? 

Oh ! many friends of boyhood 

Ear from these homes have gone ; 
Some tread earth's devious pathways, 

And some life's task have done; 
Some sleep in eaves of ocean, 

Some bleach upon its shore, 
Some rest on fields of battle, 

Who weltered in their gore ! 

Where art thou gone, my boyhood ? 

Why come my friends no more 
To share the joys so guileless, 

That filled my bosom's core ? 
Ah ! some look on me coldly 

From Alpine heights of pride, 
Some pass me by despairing, 

hince all their hopes have died. 

I mourn, I mourn my boyhood, 

Because my heart's dear ones 
Aro not now round me moving, 

Nor on me shine like suns ; 
That in earth's burial places 

All silently they sleep, 
Here never more to bless me, 

Or o'er my follies weep. 

Yet soothed am I, my boyhood, 

For hope hath not all died, 
E'en though your days have perished 

Your font will be supplied ; 
For from the crystal river 

That flows in yonder Heaven 
I'll drink new youth immortal, 

In draughts exhaustless given! 

Oh, then, thou deathless boyhood, 

There in thy new-born days, 
I'll meet the dear departed, 

And with them join in praise. 
Oh ! it will be all blissful 

Around God's throne to move, 
And chant in hymns celestial 

Willi them of Jehus' love! 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. G03 

Though changed the times and faces, yet each hill 

Is high and green, tree-clad and rocky still, 

The laurel, clover, butter-cup all bloom 

On them with beauty, shedding sweet perfume. 

The myriad stone-heaps in the fields yet rest, 

We miss but few from off their rugged breast; 

Each lake spreads out its bosom bright and clear, 

And sends its currents downward to the mere; 

Its pike and pickerel, perch and bass and eels, 

Oft tempt the fisher's skill to test his reels; 

The brooks shine as of old in summer sheen, 

Though trout in them are few and far between. 

Through chasms long-time cut, Mad River flows 

When swelled by showers or spring-time melted snows, 

Flooding its banks, its bridges sweeping off, 

And covering plains, of human skill in scoff, 

Upon whose ruin-rush and wildering trend, 

These lines, one time, a bilious poet penned: 

" Mad River, glad river, leaping 'mid mountains, 
Gathering the echoes that roll from their caves, 
Mingling the owl-hoots with song of the fountains, 
In the weird music that peals with thy waves. 

" Mad River, sad river, moaning the losses 
Of the grand forests that shaded thy sides, 
Floated away to the rock-realms where tosses 
Ghost-foam of ocean's wild storm-haunted tides. 

" Mad River, bad river, fierce in thy pleasure, 
Over the toiler's dear homes and rich fields, 
Sweeping away to the deep every treasure, 
Never to him a new harvest that yields. 

"Mad River, glad river, sad river, bad river, 

Thou art the type of each tide changing soul, 
Either with joy or with grief made to quiver, 
Ever as tides, ^ood or ill, in us roll." 

Yet in the time of drought or further flow 
Down to the eastern meadows miles below, 
Mildly " Mad River" smiles o'er happy homes, 
Becomes " Still River " as it southward roams, 
Turns mighty wheels of mills that make men's bread, 
Moistens the sods that cover up the dead, 
And tells the living how that youth's wild rage 
May bring the work of art or calm of age. 

As nature is — our hearts, are they the same ? 
Or are we changed, in life, and deed, and name ? 
Our fathers had their faults; — these do we keep 
And leave their goodness in the past to sleep ' 
They had their fierce ecclesiastic rights, 
Their orthodox discussions, and their flights 



(304 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

Of eagle logic to celestial heights ; 

Parson ami parish equal were in sin, 

When half-way covenants let chnrch-memhers in, 

Or when disputing loud of Adam's fall, 

Theyproved that in him they had sinned all ; 

Oft by Hopkinsians with the doctrine crammed 

That to he saved you must wish to he damned ! 

Their Federal and their Democratic speech 

Caused in their households many a widening hreach, 

When party spirit and New England rum 

Made their lot doubtful in " The kingdom come." 

Their hard-earned means and economic thrift, 

Oft made them chary of a lavish gift; 

Yet were they just and honest, true and pure, 

Patient and hopeful, trained well to endure 

The hard ruhs of the world and break the wiles 

Of evil, coming e'en with angel-smiles. 

Such roughness, toughness, toil and carking care, 

Nature and Time do not to us now bear; 

Witli strong machines we pull out stumps of trees, 

We clear our fields from rocks that blast with case ; 

The scythe and sickle we in scorn ignore, 

And cut our meadows with a patent mower; 

No tall well-sweeps their burdened buckets bring, 

To us come now, we go not to the spring ; 

The telegraph our message swiftly sends ; 

By lightning flash we gain our money ends. 

Volumes are writ and grand ideas we catch 

By pregnant words in one concise despatch. 

In self-conceit we boast that we all are 
Than our good fathers, keener, richer far, 
More quick at bargains, sharper at a note, 
With bigger barns ashore or ships afloat; — 
No wonder wealth and wisdom here are found, 
" Barlckamslcd Lighthouse " shines on all around ! 

Arc we so strong of thought? On Faith's great wing, 

Up to the heights of Truth soar we and sing? 

Willi earnest spirits dive we down so deep, 

Where pearls divine of wisdom darkly sleep 1 

Or have our ease and luxury made us weak, 

The things of God with throes of soul to seek? 

Are we as bold to grapple with great themes, 

To them so real — to us more like past dreams i 

Are we in love with sacrifice of self, 

Or, chained to earth, in love with petty pelf? 

Shall Darwin prove a monkey was our sire, 

Or Huxley mix as in material mire? 

What moral progress parallel with these 
Inventions of our day that so much please, 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 605 

Do we now make 1 What loftier stand of good 
Do we now take, as Duty bids we should 1 
Higher and truer, purer, nobler, we, 
Than were our Fathers, in our life, must be. 

Oh ! as we onward sweep, by spark and steam, 

To the blest heights of some Eutopian dream, 

Where temporal ill, and human strife shall cease, 

Where nations may from bondage find release, 

So let us mount, by footsteps all divine, 

And on the hills celestial brighter shine, 

The noble sons of fathers noble-born, 

Beholders of a better generation's morn, 

The grander offspring of the grand old times, 

Who hear the music of millennial chimes 

Come floating o'er the far off Future's sea, 

And to the rhythm of their crystal wave 

March forth in power, humanity to save, 

Along the ways our strong-souled fathers trod 

To wield the force — the enginery of God, 

The culture, treasure, wisdom of the age, 

In full accord with Revelation's page, 

To launch the world upon that truth-lit sea, 

To float the nation great, and true, and free, 

On to the shores where bliss and glory wait 

To usher souls through Heaven's love-guarded gate, 

And bring them, star-bright, to their thrones on high, 

Amid the God-crowned circles of the sky! 

The reading of the Poem was often greeted with cheers and laughter, 
as the telling points impressed themselves upon the eagerly listeuing au- 
dience. This was followed by an Anthem by the Choir. 

The President. Ladies and gentlemen, we have placed in the vestry of the 
church before us our mementos of the past and our curious works of art, for your in- 
spection ; but we have placed upon this platform our Jewell, His Excellency, the Gov- 
ernor of Connecticut, — God bless him. (Long continued applause.) 

Thus introduced and thus welcomed, His Excellency proceeded to 
respond, as follows : 

ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR JEWELL. 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : — When I accepted the invitation of 
my honored friend, the historian of the day, to be present at this centennial celebra- 
tion, I knew I should derive both pleasure and profit by so doing, but to what extent 
I did not, could not anticipate. It is far beyond my most sanguine expectations. It 
is always a pleasure for me to mingle with my fellow-citizens, either in a public or 
private capacity, and it is particularly so on occasions like this. 

When in a community like this, renowned alike for its intelligence, its thrift, its de- 
votion to those fundamental principles of equality and justice which underlie the re- 
public, and insure its .success; when in such a community, an epoch has been reached, 

77 



606 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

or a period lias been marked on the great cycle of time, and the people meet together 
to compare notes, and to give as it were an account of their stewardship ; when this 
nappens, as in the present instance, it is the best of all times to see what real, genuine 
New England character is, what it has done, what it may do. Connecticut is, and 
has a right to be proud of its history, and of its long line of illustrious men. Not the 
least of these have been its Governors, of whom your county has furnished four during 
the century, whose names lend additional lustre to the already bright page of the his- 
tory of the State. 

This town was sett id during the most eventful period of American history. Ono 
hundred years ago ( 'onnei ticat was in a ferment of preparation for anticipated hostili- 
ties with the mother country. Jonathan Trumbull was Governor, one of the most 
wise and sagacious men America has ever produced, whose name and fame became 
so nationalized by the confidence reposed in him by Washington, that the country 
adopted for itself in honor of him, as one of its pet names, that of Brother Jonathan, 
by which endearing title he was called by the father of his country. The State was 
agitated by those apprehensions which reached their crisis in the spring of 177-1. 
By this time the obnoxious tea had been thrown overboard in Boston harbor and 
British vengeance had concocted by way of retort the Boston port b II, and had struck 
by legislative act at the charter and government of Massachusetts. The. first recorded 
evidi nee on the part of Connecticut, that indicated the general peril, was a proclamation 
issued by Governor Trumbulljn May, 1774, which, after reciting the threatening aspect 
of Great Britain, enjoined a day of fasting and prayer. This proclamation was stum 
followed by an order to all the towns to double their quantity of powder, balls, and 
flints, ami by resolutions passed in various town meetings, which declared the meas- 
ures of the British parliament to lie usurpations which placed life, liberty, and property 
at utter hazard, and unalterable determination of the people of Connecticut to main- 
tain and transmit those rights to the latest generations. It is a matter ol no surprise 
that the grand old Governor should have earned the title of rebel Governor, which was 
given him in London, in 1771, four years before the Declaration of Independence. 

It was amidst su h commotions as these stirring events would indicate, that this 
now thriving town was settled, twenty years after the organization of Litchfield 
county. How well it was located, how brave and hardy were its pioneers, through 
what dangers they passed, and what magnificent results crowned their efforts, strug- 
gles, and trials, has been ably and happily told you here to-day. It may not he amiss 
to briefly note how nobly the people made good the gallant Governor's prediction in 
the struggle for independence which ensued. During the revolution, Conn client 
ranked tilth of the old thirteen States in population, Massachusetts, New Fork, Vir- 
ginia, and South Carolina, being ahead of her. 

In 1774 the population of the State was 198,010, and yet she furnished during the 
eight years of # the war .'59,831 continental troops and militia, which was the most fur- 
nished by any State except Massachusetts, which latter State furnished 8.'i,()'.i2, New 
York furnishing 21,093, Virginia •'!(). s:i5, and South Carolina hut 5, rats. .\l r . Roger 
S. Baldwin said in the Senate, in reply to Mr. Mason of Virginia, "I can inform the 
senator that Connecticut, small as she was in territory and population compared with 
Virginia, had more troops in the war than the great State of Virginia. Virginia was 
obliged to offer tremendous bounties to induce her people to serve. The inhabitants 
of Connecticut rushed at once to the combat. They were at Ticonderoga, they were 
with Ethan Allen and his Green .Mountain Hoys, himself a native of Connecticut, 
on an expedition planned in Connecticut, and paid for by Connecticut, before the 
continental congress of 1776 had assembled— capturing that important fortress almost 
he blood had grown cold that was shed at Concord and Lexington. They 
were at Bunker Hill with Putnam and Knowlton and Grosvenor, and their brave 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 607 

compatriots, who needed no bounties to induce them to engage in the service of their 
country." 

The Hon. Henry C. Deming says in a letter to George M. Brown in 1857 : — "No 
State contributed more than Connecticut to our revolutionary literature, to those 
soups, and strains, and martial airs, more potent to move and change than even laws 
and arms. John Trumbull rushed i .to the war with a pen as sharp and effective as 
any sword. ' McFingal ' was written at the urgent solicitation of John Adams and 
the members of the American Congress." 

Connecticut furnished more salt beef and pork, and more live cattle, than any other 
State. So remarkable was she in this respect that she was known as the Provision 
State. In the winter of 1778, the darkest period of the resolution, while our discour- 
aged and disheartened troops lay cold, naked, and hungry at Valley Forge, both officers 
and men nearly in despair, the commander-in-chief, as usual, turned his eyes longingly 
towards Connecticut, and made a strong appeal to Brother Jonathan for assistance. 
Nor was the call long unanswered, for, by order of the Governor, the chief commis- 
sary of the State, Colonel Champion, of Colchester, soon collected, and himself drove 
a large herd of cattle in mid winter, through almost impenetrable forests, over streams 
a:id mountains, more than three hundred miles, to the west bank of the Schuylkill, 
to the relief of more than ten thousand of our brave and starving men. 

Such was Connecticut a hundred years ago — such in brief was the condition of 
affairs at the time of the first settlement of this town. 

Our population small and scattered, our roads poor, and means of communication 
exceedingly difficult, steam and electricity still in the future, every man, woman, 
and child fully occupied in obtaining ihe means of subsistence, new towns to he laid 
out, built, and organized, everybody in a hand to hand struggle with nature, yet, no 
sooner were any of the rights of the colonists threatened or invaded, than there were 
found to be. plenty of men, and time, and food, and clothing, and, best of all, pluck, 
with which to defend themselves against all invading forces. Is the present generation 
up to the standard of the one of which we have spoken '? Have we the elements of 
national growth and strength in as large a degree as had our forefathers ? Are we as 
honest, as frugal, as patriotic, a? self-sacrificing, as those who have given us their high 
example '? 

In following down the century which we arc now contemplating, it would be proper, 
had we time, to dwell for a moment upon the distinguished services which your own 
Litchfield county Governors have rendered to the State, covering a period of seventeen 
years, the two Governors Wolcott, Smith, and Holley. It is perhaps sufficient for our 
purpose to know that they did not detract from, but added to the high estimation in 
which our governors had always been held. For (nearly) ninety years after Governor 
Trumbull's administration, no Governor had an opportunity equal to his, in which to 
show his ability, integrity, and patriotism. Such opportunities are granted to but few, 
however much they may be longed for. Nor had the people had any occasion to show 
their strength and loyalty. Nothing had called out the patriotism and devotion to 
country which lay dormant beneath the quiet exterior of peace and a stable government. 
But the storm finally came. Alter much murmuring, threatening, and commotion, there 
came another time in our history that our liberties were threatened, our rights invaded, 
1 1 1 . our constitution was sought to be overthrown by traitors in our midst, a time 
that demanded our entire strength if we would preserve intact that inheritance which 
we re eived from our fathers. The circumstances of this last great struggle in which 
Connecticut did her full share, are too fresh in your minds to need recapitulation. It 
was then found that wc had a chief magistrate second only to Washington; that 
Connecticut had a Governor equal to any tint had gone before; and that the people, 
as they sprang to arms to put down a gigantic rebellion, were worthy of bo th President 
and Governor. 



608 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

If we may judge of the future by the past, it is safe to predict that the intelligence 
and patriotism of the people will he found equal to any demands which may be made 
upon them, and that in the future conflicts which are quite likely to come to the re- 
public, the people of our grand old commonwealth will be found where they ever have 
been found, in the front rank, fighting for freedom, for liberty, and for law. 

A handsome bouquet of flowers was presented to the Governor at the 
close. 

The address of the Governor was heartily applauded. 

The President: — I am not instructed as to the manner in which the 
other exercises of the afternoon shall be conducted. There are many 
eminent gentlemen here who, if called upon, will, I presume, address you. 
It hardly belongs to me to suggest. 

Rev. Joseph Eldridge, D. D., of Norfolk, being called for, said: 

I need not say that this call upon me for a brief address is entirely unexpected, t 
am gratified, however, with these commemorative occasions, because I think they 
spring from sentiments, and are calculated to strengthen sentiments that are fitted to 
counteract a very strong social tendency of our times. The tendency to which I refer 
is that of excessive individualism, where each person shall set out, caring for himself 
and seeking his own advancement, irrespective of social or even domestic feelings. 

There are circumstances in our country that favor this tendency. The members of 
families do not, as in the last century, remain long enough near the old home ; nor do 
the children settle around in the vicinity of each other. They are early separated 
from their homes and scattered far and wide, becoming almost strangers to each other. 
And the consequences are a lack of local attachment and an almost dying out of family 
feeling. I therefore rejoice at every indication and every circumstance that operates to 
counteract this tendency to excessive individualism. 

Among the circumstances that I think have this tendency to keep alive proper sen- 
timents, one is the disposition on the part of families to trace out their genealogy. 
This is now becoming more and more common ; and I think it is very desirable that 
as fur as possible family pedigree should lie traced out. Occasions of family gatherings 
of those of the same name and blood should be encouraged and become more frequent. 

I know some men, especially in these days, who glory in being self-made men — un- 
fortunately, not very well made. I believe that most of those who have risen in the 
world and acquired distinction, if inquired of as to the principal cause to which they 
attribute their success, would ascrihe it to what they had received of energy, intellect, 
and character from some devoted mother or some humble father. They do not fed 
themselves to be self-made, although they may have made their fortunes. 

Another circumstance that tends very much to counteract this tendency to excessive 
individualism is a commemorative occasion like; this, when epochs in a town arc 
marked and histories of its progress are written, such as we have listened to to-day 
with so much interest ami so much profit. It is a low ambition to have a desire for 
the feeling of independence of the past, and of indifference to the future. These oc- 
casions awaken nobleness of thou lit and largeness of mind, leading us to feel that 
we are connected with the workers of the past and that we have responsibilities which 
reach on to the future ; that we are but one link in the great chain of agencies, and 
responsible for our part in the progress of events as tiny transpire. Such occasions 
i s this arc calculated to awaken and cherish these appropriate sentiments in our hearts, 
and therefore I rej lice in theii occurr inco, and csp «i illy in the great interest that this 
occasion has brought forth. (Applause.) 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. QQQ 

The following telegram was here received and read by the President : 

Quincy, 111., Aug. 16th, 1871. 
To Winchester Centennial: — In spirit I am with you. Business prevents 
personal attendance. I trust that our good works for the next one hundred years will 
surpass those of the last century. 

Winsted's Son, 

W. B. ANDREWS. 

Rev. Horace Winslow, of Willimantic, followed, in a humorous 
speech, giving something of the experience he passed through in Winsted, 
and especially as connected with his being taken on one occasion for a 
horse-thief; the horse and the thief having been traced to Winsted from 
east of the Connecticut river, and Mr. Winslovv being somewhat of a 
stranger here, and answering the description of the supposed thief. 

Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., of New Haven, was the next speaker. 
He said : 

I have been enjoying the occasion to-day as I rarely enjoy an occasion of the kind ; 
for it has been in my thoughts all the time that I had nothing to do but to enjov it. 
And now, what shall I say ? For I know not at what point to begin. 

One thing has impressed my mind to-day as it has frequently of late. Looking at 
the changes which have been wrought within my own memory, in the character of the 
industry of Connecticut, in the employment of its people, in the distribution of its 
population, what is to be the destiny of Connecticut during the next hundred years? 
The changes from 1870 to 1970 w r e may venture to predict will be as great as the changes 
have been between 1771 and 1S71. A hundred years ago, when Connecticut was 
ready to enter into the great conflict of the Revolution, it was the fo'od-producing state 
for the armies of the revolution; while to-day Connecticut does not produce the food 
that supplies the wants of her own operative workmen. Within my memory Connec- 
ticut was a state exporting food to distant parts of the Union and to the West Indies. 
To-day the people of Connecticut would starve in less than two months, if it were not 
for food imported from abroad. The farms on these old hill' sides and hill tops have 
been depreciating in value year by year, and the population which docs not go away 
to California or the West or South, slides down from the hills into these valleys, where 
these mill sites are, where the rivers as they pass on their way lend their power to sup- 
plement the agencies and industry of man. 

By and bye those who come after us will see a charge. We begin to see indications 
of it now. The wealth produced and accumulated in the valleys will well up on the 
hillsides; and the destiny of Connecticut at some future day will be to become one 
great hive of manufacturing industry. From the water power working to produce, 
and from accumulating wealth, the farms on the hill-sides will become the garden 
spots, as it were, of these cities and towns filled with resounding machinery and alive 
with industry. I look forward to that coming time with confidence. When I see the 
forces that are at work to-day I am not disposed to be simply a praiser of the time 
that is past, but to be hopeful in regard to the future; and I believe that another ven- 
eration after this, and another after that, will be more enlightened, more cultivated 
more controlled by moral principles, more elevated by the principles of true and saving 
religion than any generation that has gone before; and so, as I look forward, I trust 
that this fair land of ours, this historic old state that, has done so much heretofore for 
the good of humanity, shall continue to he a model stale for the Union, a state from 



(310 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

which all the influences going forth shall ever be what they have been in the past — 
influences that have m idc a "wilderness to rejoice and he glad, ami the desert to hi js- 
som as the rose." (Applause.) 

Rev. F. A. Spencer, of Vernon, N. Y., followed, saying 

That though he was not born in Winsted, his father ami mother were horn in the 
town, lie had found it a pleasant plaee to visit as he had often been here; hut it was 
also a good place to go from. There are some noble men in central New York, who 
went from old Winchester. We have a county where old Winchester has planted its 
foot a great many times, and there is right behind me a blessed friend, Deacon Hills, 
who, nearly ninety years ae,o, opened his eyes upon Winchester hill, and went into 
the State of New York and succeeded his own father in the deaconship of the church. 
Forty vears ago I used to look with reverence on his gray hairs, and he used to pat 
me on the head and tell me he hoped I would he a good hoy. We have been friends 
always, and I persuaded him to come down here to sec how Winchester looks. 

About eighty years ago my grandfather, who lies buried on Winchester hill, said to 
my father, then twenty-one, "John, you have been a good boy, your time is nowyour 
own ; you must now go out and take cue of yourself. I can do no more than provide 
for your sisters" — there were seven or eight of them. John went out and worked by 
the month; and wdtat did he do the first year ? He came down here and bought the 
land on which Winsted now stands, the whole Higley farm, reaching from here away 
up to the old hemlock swamp. He worked every day as a farmer, and took it for his 
" stent " to make a pair of shoes every night, for he was a shoemaker as well as farmer. 
There was then no road and he finally persuaded the town authorities to make him a 
road. He bought the whole of Winsted for three dollars an acre. 

I came down here just to look at my mother's and my grandfather's graves, one 
here, and one in the Old Society. I have enjoyed this occasion very much indeed. 

Mr. Spencer closed by an allusion to some ot the pleasing characteristics of his 
venerable uncle, Mr. Jonathan Cue, and made pleasant allusion to some other early 
residents. 

Rev. Lku.mas II. Pease, of New Orleans, La., a native of Winsted, 
being on the platform, was called upon for some remarks, but declined on 
account of the already lengthy exercises of the occasion. 

A brief address was made by Mir. John R.Pitkin, of Woodhaven, 
N. Y., who announced himself to have been a school teacher of the olden 
time who never used a whip, and who once worked on a farm in Win- 
chester for $4.50 a month, and aved half of it. A. M. Perkins, of "Win- 
sted, volunteered a short poem. 

Excellent music was furnished during the exercises by a volunteer 
chorus. 

The exercises closed at 4 o'clock — till having passed ell' very pleasantly. 

In the evening there was a social re-union at the residi nee of Nbrmand 
Adams, Esq. 

The returned children of Winchester were warm in praise of their 
cordial ki welcome home." 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES, &c 



Gil 



A very interesting feature of the celebrations in both societies were (lie 
relics of old times, in the shape of portraits of citizens once resident 
here, old books, articles of furniture or of wearing apparel, ancient em- 
broidery and needle-work, &c, &c. The collection at Winchester Center 
was at Bronson's Hall. Among these articles were a board from the 
front of the gallery of the first meeting house, embellished with sundry 
cuts and carvings, and several dates, among them 1773, 1775, deeply 
sunken by jack-knives, showing that in the good old times, in spite of 
tithing men and blue laws, boy nature was much the same as now ; many 
of the joiner's tools used in framing the second church, eiected in 178G- 
178S ; also a piece of the carved ornaments about the pulpit of this church 
and some of the trimmings from the top of the old square pews; several 
pitch pipes, including the one used for many years by Major Andrews, as 
chorister; several portraits, including those of Rev. Father Marsh and 
his lovely wife, Capt. Levi Munsill and wife, Esq. Beebe and his son 
Robert, Widow Mercy Bronson, Rev. Dr. Abel McEwen, for more than 
fifty years pastor of the church in New London, a number of the members 
of the Blake family formerly so numerous and prominent in the; town; 
a printed sermon (probably the only copy in existence) preached hy Rev. 
Ammi R. Robbins, of Norfolk, at the ordination of Rev. Joshua Knapp 
as first pastor of the church ; an arm-chair, made by John Mc Alpine, Esq., 
from the timbers of the first meeting house, and occupied during the cen- 
tennial exercises by Rev. Mr. Marsh. 

There were many household articles in common use half a century a £0 
and earlier, such as the spinning-wheel, rolls, little wheel, reel, hatchel, 
cards, the tall clock made by " Riley Whiting, Winchester," splint-bottomed 
kitchen chairs, durable Windsor chairs, andirons, long-handled spider, 
toasting iron, lanterns without a hit of glass giving their light through the 
holes arranged in curious figures punched in the tin, tall iron candle- 
sticks, warming pais, and pewter tankards and platters, some cf them 
polished to the last degree of brightness. 

From the Starks family we had the old family cradle, and the bread 
tray of the first Deacon AVetmore, hollowed out of a log with a hatchet, 
" Granny Loveland's" family Bible, with other things. 

The Loomis family exhibited a very ancient Bible, with a full family 
record ; many curious pieces of antique e trthen ware ; a wonderful woolen 
blanket or rug made in 1775 by Hannah Dolbeare, given to the For- 
eign Mission School at Cornwall, and bought by Deacon Loomis when 
steward of the institution. 

The AVetmores brought sundry cumbrous and rough tools, used by suc- 
cessive generations of workers in wood; a strange old decanter, or demi- 



612 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 

jolin ; Dr. Wetmore's spurs, used for years in his horseback rides over the 
hills, &c. 

Col. Ozias Bronson's sword attracted much attention, as also his large 
dining table, where he lunched his company on training days. 

The family Bible of the early McAlpines, with the covered blue wooden 
cradle, brought over the sea from the Scottish home, were worth much 
examination; while a covered pitcher, somewhat broken, presented to 
Mrs. Marsh many years ago, by Miss Sarah Benedict, and proved to have 
come over in the Mayflower, aimed at the preeminence. 

We looked wonderingly at the queer old round table that Widow Han- 
nah Everitt, the sturdy pioneer, spread before her guests when she kept 
tavern on the North road, where the latch string was always out, and we 
saw the veritable wooden latch, taken from her house, (torn down several 
years since,) lying upon the table. The funny old wrapper, with a square 
collar, said to have belonged to the landlady, was in keeping with the 
large glass tumblers, ornamented with wonderful figures, and in possession 
of the family more than a century. 

Then we had Dr. Everitt's old square chair, his inkstand and account 
books, together with his spectacles with their huge round glasses and iron 
enough in the frames to make a small stove, while articles of crockery 
in common use by Mrs. Noble J. Everitt for more than fifty years, each 
with a different land-cape painted upon it, and a quaint pepper-box with 
a cork in the bottom, completed the interesting collection from this family. 

Mrs. Isaac Wade sent a large mug and bowl of strange pattern and 
great age, while the toddy tumbler of old Mr. Elijah Blake, always filled 
on Thanksgiving days and similar family occasions and passed around to 
the whole company, was exhibited by his granddaughter, and gave rise to 
endless jokes and mirth. 

Some curious crockery from Henry Drake, a table-waiter used at the 
ordination of Rev. Mr. Marsh, a platter from Mrs. Harvey Andrews, tea 
cups from Mrs. Norris Toe, sundry tiles and some delicate old china from 
Mrs. Frank L. Whiting, with many old-fashioned household utensils from 
James L. Bragg, a linen table-cloth spun and woven by the wife of Dea. 
Eliphaz Alvord, with many towels and sheets of household manufacture 
in the early times, each received their share of examination. 

The Munsill baby dress worn by six children of Capt. M ., the youngest 
now about sixty years old, with a bedquilt pieced from the chintz wedding 
dress of the mother of Norris Coe, worn eighty years ago, and costing a 
dollar a yard, showed the durability of old-fashioned manufactures. 

The collection at Winstcd was arranged in the basement of the M. E. 
Church, from which the seats had been removed, two long tables receiving 
the various articles excepting such as were hung upon the walls or other- 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 613 

wise disposed of. A prominent feature of this collection was the large 
number of portraits of natives or former residents, among which were 
those of Gideon Hall, Sr., Dr. Luman Wakefield and wife, Rev. James 
Beach and wife, Capt. Wheelock Thayer and wife, Col. Hosea Hinsdale 
and wife, Dea. James H. Alvord and wife, Jonathan Coe and wife, Moses 
Camp, Sr., and wife, Rev. Daniel Coe and wife, Solomon Rockwell and 
wife, Alpha Rockwell and wife, Mrs. Hepzibah Rockwell, mother of the 
brothers Alpha and Solomon, Lorrin Whiting and wife, Riley Whiting 
and wife ; and of later residents, Seth L. Wilder, William H. Phelps, S. 
Ward Coe, Lucius Clarke, Nelson D. Coe, Elliot Beardsley, Gideon 
Hall, Jr., and wife, Luman Hubbell. 

There was a large variety of ancient relics, some of which were local 
in character and associations, while others illustrated old times without 
special reference to Winchester. The first tavern sign ever put up in 
Winsted, used at the " Hall place," on the hill beyond the East Village, 
attracted much attention. There were pewter platters, two silver tea- 
spoons seventy-five years old, mugs, dishes, pans, spinning wheels, old 
chairs and tables, hatchels, cards, and all the paraphernalia of spinning 
and reeling, many small mantel ornaments, antique and unique ; a piece 
of pottery from Mrs. R. L. Beecher that came over in the "Mayflower"; 
a child's shoe, handed down in the family of Mrs. Wm. C. Phelps, which 
was made for Mrs. Phelps's great-aunt, and known to be 140 years old; 
curious and beautiful articles of needle-work made by the girls of 70 to 
100 years ago, among which was specially to be noted a silk-embroidered 
landscape sent by Mrs. Ezekiel Woodford ; an old "Hussey"* or needle- 
case that belonged to the grand-mother of Mrs. Daniel Tuttle (herself 85 
years old) ; a knitting sheath some six inches long, curiously carved in 
wood and made in 1732 ; some bed curtains with large, spreading figures, 
from 150 to 200 years old. 

There was a bass-viol over 100 years old; a pitch-pipe, and a tuning- 
fork some six or eight inches long, the property of Jesse Williams, which 
were used to start the music in the first religious society in Winsted ; a 
straw hat many years worn by "Uncle Jonny" Coe; a ponderous musket, 
used in the Revolutionary War, and a coat and vest, long and curious, 80 
or 90 years of age, made here, and worn by a bridegroom exactly as it 
was shown. 

Mrs. Caleb J. Camp furnished a capacious, old-time oaken chest, with 
carved front, a peculiar merit of which was, that it did not come over in 
the "Mayflower," although it was unquestionably aged when it came from 
England ; a round dining table, old but elaborate ; the first pulpit Bible 
of the first Congregational Church in Winsted ; the private Bible of her 
father, the Rev. James Beach, having the texts he used marked, and bear- 



* This word is supposed to be a corruption of " housewife. 
78 



614 ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 

ing evidence of faithful and long continued use ; a newspaper published 
just after Washington's death, draped for him and containing his will; a 
pair of solid silver knee-buckles ; a pair of linen stockings beautifully 
wrought by hand 60 to 75 years since, and two pairs of gloves whose, 
gauntlets reached to the elbows. 

J. J. Whiting brought a suit of child's clothes, made in the fashion of 
fifty years ago; a large pewter platter and dishes, in which were served 
baked beans and pork, which formed a part of the dinner of Gov. Jewell 
and others. 

Benjamin Lawrence brought a large masonic pitcher, covered with 
emblems of all degrees of the order, and holding three or four quarts, for 
more than one hundred years in his family, and of foreign manufacture; 
and an old masonic suit was shown by Orrin White. 

Various ancient books were displayed, especially one by Edward 
Clarke, a hymn book of great antiquity and interest; old papers by S. B. 
Forbes, Mrs. Plumb, and others. And finally, a quantity of arrow heads 
and other Indian relics dug up within our borders. 

The room was beautifully decorated with evergreens, and presented an 
attractive appearance. 

Nor should mention be forgotten of the ancient springless wagon in the 
procession, with small wheels having large spokes and long, tapering hubs, 
and with high-backed kitchen chairs for the occupants, whose feet rested 
on an abundant sprinkling of straw. The driver, arrayed in as old cos- 
tume as could be found, plied his ox-whip faithfully, and was admirably 
supported by three ladies whose dress was equally representative in iis 
character. And the riders on saddle and pillion gave an excellent exp< si- 
tion of that style of locomotion so universally in vogue when the town 
was settled. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



The death of Theron Bronson, Esq., late presiding officer of the Win- 
chester church centennial exercises, occurring while these sheets are going 
through the press, we copy from the Winsted Herald the following 
obituary : 

Died at Winchester Center, on the 20th of January, 1873, Theron 
Bronson, Esq., aged 63 years. 

Mr. Bronson, by birth, ancestry, life-long residence, and active busi- 
ness, has been identified with all the interests of the town, and especially 
with those of the parish of his residence. 

With activity, energy, and endurance, rarely equaled, he embarked in 
business at an early age, and prosecuted it in various forms, with increas- 
ing ardor, until the very close of his useful and exemplary life. As a 
farmer and stock dealer he became by far the largest land-owner in the 
town; while as a trader and produce dealer, he contributed largely to the 
prosperity of the community around him. His manly form and cheerful 
visage are indelibly impressed on the memory of a wide-spread circle of 
friends and acquaintances. 

When to these characteristics are added a kind and generous heart and 
liberal hand, unquestioned integrity, large public spirit and private benev- 
olence, and a pure Christian life, we have a man whose memory will be 
gratefully cherished, and whose loss will be deplored long after his mortal 
remains shall have mingled with kindred dust. 






APPENDIX 



TOWN, COUNTY 


, AND LEGISLATIVE OFFICERS. 




SENATORS. 


Beardsley, Elliott 
Beebe, James 
Boyd, John 
Clarke, Lucius 


1853 

1836 1837 
1854 
1846 


Coe, Samuel W. 1850 
Dudley, George 1863 
Hall, Gideon, Jr. 1847 



REPRESENTATIVES. 
[Note. — Previous to the adoption of the Constitution of 1818, two sessions of the 
Legislature were held each year — in May and October.] 



Name. 


First. Last. 


No. 


Name. 


First. Last. No. 


Adams, Matthew 


1818 1831 


5 


Fanning, John J. 


1863 1 


" Normand 


1851 


1 


Fyler, Florimond D. 


1872 1 


Alvord, Charles 


1861 


1 


Gaylord, Nathaniel B. 


1816 1818 2 


" Eliphaz 


1787 1811 


11 


Gilbert, Alvin 


1850 1 


Andrews, Daniel 


1833 


1 


William L. 


1848 1868 -J 


" Harvey 


1858 


1 


Gilman, Elias E. 


1866 1 


Beardsley, Elliot 


1863 


1 


Hall, Gideon, Jr. 


1838 1860 4 


Beebe, James 


1819 1826 


3 


Hatch, Washington 


1844 1 


Beecher, Rollin L. 


1846 1864 


2 


Higley, Horace 


1799 1806 7 


Benedict, Benjamin 


1787 1817 


7 


Hills, Huet 


1792 1794 4 


Bidwell, John W. 


1855 


1 


" Seth 


1781 1793 6 


Bird, David 


1852 


1 


Hinsdale, Bissell 


1815 1815 2 


Birdsall, James 


1859 


1 


" Hosea 


1821 1 


Blake, Jonathan 


1851 


1 


" Theodore 


1837 1 


Boyd, James 


1804 1819 


5 


Hoadley, Samuel 


1811 1 


" John 


1830 1835 


2 


Holmes, Joseph 


1808 1814 6 


Bronson, Isaac 


1823 1832 


3 


Hubbard, Stephen A. 


1855 1 


" Isaac A. 


1866 


1 


Hurlbut, Samuel 


1791 1810 17 


" Theron 


1849 


1 


" " 


1835 1 


William B. 


1857 


1 


" Stephen 


1856 1 


Brownson, Ozias 


1783 1784 


3 


Jenkins, Benjamin 


1803 1804 2 


Brown, Francis 


1867 


1 


Loomis, Oliver 


1834 1 


Bull, Merrit 


1817 1817 


2 


Marsh, Joseph M. 


1871 1 


Camp, John 


1844 


1 


McCune, David 


1791 1 


" Moses 


1865 


1 


" Robert 


1781 1797 9 


Case, Lyman 
Chase, Dudley 


1839 


1 


Miller, Joseph 


1829 1 


1854 


1 


Miner, Phineas 


1809 1816 6 


Clarke, Thomas M. 


1857 


1 


Moore, Ralph H. 


1870 1 


Cleveland, George B. 


1867 


1 


Munsill, Marcus 


1847 1 


" James C. 


1834 


1 


Nash, Alva 


1829 1830 2 


Coe, Jonathan, Jr. 


1822 1828 


4 


Pettibone, Ira W. 


1868 1 


" James R. 


1845 


1 


Phelps, Daniel 


1818 1828 2 


" Norris 


1838 1839 


2 


" Warren 


1862 1 


" Roger 


1814 1815 


3 


Piatt, Sylvester 


1860 1 


" William G. 


1859 1865 


2 


Roberts, Harvey L. 


1871 1 


Cummings, J. T. 


1809 


1 


Rockwell, Alpha 


1807 1 


Drake, Rufus 


1836 1837 


2 


John T. 


1869 1 


Dudley, George 


1847 


1 


" Solomon 


1820 1 



618 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER, 



Name. 
Rowley, Artemas 
Russell, Giles 

" Nathaniel 
Sheldon, Philo G. 
Smith, Asahel 
" Elisha 
" Heman 
" Zebina 
Spencer, Grinnell 
Strong, David 
Taylor, George 
Thayer, Wheelock 
Tolles, Amos 



Adams, Normand 
Alvord, Charles 
" Eliphaz 
Baldwin, Ezra 
Beach, Albert N. 
Beebe, James 
Beecher, Rollin L. 
Beers, Lewis F. 
Blake, Jonathan 
Boyd, John 
Bronson, Isaac 
" Isaac A. 
" Theron 
Camp, Edward 

" Moses 
Carrington, Wm. 
Case, Lyman 

" Lyman W. 
Clarke, Lucius 
Coe, James R. 

" Jonathan, Jr. 

" Norris, 

" Samuel W. 

" William G. 
Crowcll, Albert 
Dickerman, Wm. B. 
Drake, Mose9 
" Rut'us 
Dudley, George 
Forbes, Samuel B. 
Ford, Harvey 

" Nelson D. 
Foskett, Anson 
Fyler, Florimond D. 
Gaylord, Nathaniel B. 
Giddings, V. R. C. 
Gilbert, Alvin 

" William L. 
Hall, Gid.on, Jr. 
Hallett, Charles B. 
flatch, William F. 
Hinsdale, Hosea 

" Theodore 
Hitchcock, Roland 



First. Last. No. 


Name. 


First. 


Last. No. 


1853 


1 


Wakefield, Luman 


1826 


1827 


2 


1810 1816 


3 


Watson, Thomas 


1864 




1 


1801 


1 


Welch, James 


1852 




1 


1850 


1 


Wetmore, Abel S. 


1848 




1 


1827 1831 


12 


John G. 


1862 




1 


1856 


I 


Seth 


1799 


1802 


4 


1795 1800 


3 


White, George 


1861 




1 


1798 1802 


2 


Wheelock, Daniel B. 


1849 




1 


1824 


1 


Whiting, Riley 


1818 


1832 


2 


1872 


1 


Wilder, Seth L. 


1858 




1 


1853 


1 


Wilson, Abijah 


1798 


1802 


2 


1833 


1 


Woodruff, Frederick 


1870 




1 


1812 1812 
USTICES 


2 
OF 


York, Charles J. 
THE PEACE. 


1869 




1 


1848 1850 


2 


Howe, John D. 


1842 




1 


1849 


1 


Holabird, William S. 


1825 


1855 


28 


1779 1817 


18 


Hubbard, Stephen A. 


1860 




1 


1848 1854 


3 


Hubbell, Luman 


1833 


1835 


2 


1870 




" McPherson 


1849 


1851 


o 


1817 1839 


22 


Humphrey, James 


1852 


1854 


2 


1854 




Hurlbut, Samuel Jr. 


1831 


1849 


9 


1866 1868 


2 


" Samuel 


1798 


1819 


121 


1839 1858 


14 


William F. 


1870 






1828 1858 


127 


Kelsey, William 


1848 


1851 


3 


1822 1839 


17 


Loomis, Frederick L. 


1864 


1866 


2 


1868 1873 


3 


" Lewis E. 


1843 




1 


1842 1864 


120 


Marsh, William S. 


1833 


1838 


5 


1864 1866 


2 


McAlpine, John, Jr. 


1846 


1851 


3 


1844 1860 


8 


Silas H. 


1835 


1842 


7 


1844 


1 


Miller, Joseph 


1817 


1834 


17 


1838 1856 


3 


Munsell, Luman 


1844 


1850 


6 


1851 


1 


" Marcus 


1860 


1868 


4 


1844 1848 


4 


Nash, Alva 


1832 


1854 


22 


1848 1850 


2 


Norton, Charles S. 


1862 






1824 1830 


6 


Oatman, Loyal 


1870 




1 


1844 1850 


5 


Peck, William K. 


1866 


1869 


3 


1835 1868 


33 


Perkins, Augustus M. 


1872 






1858 1872 


14 


Hiram 


1850 


1873 


16 


1850 


1 


Pettibonc, Ira W. 


1866 


1871 


5 


1856 1858 


2 


Piatt, Sylvester 


1848 


1860 


1 1 


1846 1851 


2 


Rockwell, Homy E. 


1846 




1 


1844 1846 


2 


" Solomon 


1803 


1818 


15 


1841 1846 


3 


Rood, William 11. 


1845 


1871 


4 


1868 1872 


4 


Rowley, Stephen 


1835 


1838 


3 


1842 1864 


11 


Senior, Thomas 


1 850 




1 


1864 1873 


5 


Weed, Charles B. 


1858 


1862 


4 


1842 1850 


8 


Welch, James 


1838 


1841 


3 


1866 




Wentworth, Chester 


1850 




1 


1841 1846 


5 


Wetmore, George W. 


1850 




1 


1862 1864 


2 


" Truman S. 


1819 


1842 


20 


1843 


1 


Wilder, SethL. 


1864 


1866 


2 


1854 1858 


4 


Woodford, Erastus S. 


1845 


1870 


17 


1832 1866 


81 


WoodnilV, Frederick 


1872 






1862 1866 


4 


Soper, Chester 


1831 


1841 


lo 


1847 1849 


2 


Taylor, George 


1851 


1854 


3 


1831 1833 


2 


Thayer, Wheelock 


1835 


1847 


5 


1835 1842 


7 


Wakefield, John L. 


1850 


1852 




1845 




" Luman 


1819 


1848 


l".i 



APPENDIX. 



619 



JUDGES OF PROBATE. 



Name. 
Boyd, John 
^ Camp, John 
Coe, Daniel 

" Samuel W. 
Gilman, Elias E. 



First. Last. No. 

1838 1869 14 

1861 1 

1842 1 

1843 1850 3 
1871 



Name. 
Hall, Gideon, Jr. 
Hitchcock, Roland 
Perkins, Hiram 
Rood, William H. 



First. Last. No. 
1839 1848 6 

1846 1856 6 
1869 1871 2 

1847 1 



TOWN CLERKS. 



Alvord, Charles 


1851 


1854 


3 


Goodwin, Theodore 


1797 


1 


" Eliphaz 


1771 


1819 


46 


Hubbard, Stephen A. 


1854 


1 


Boyd, John 


1829 


1873 


26 


North, Martin 


1801 


1 


Camp, Moses, 2d 


1846 


1849 


3 


Piatt, Levi 


1819 1827 


8 


Coe, Samuel W. 


1833 


1841 


I 1 


Woodford, Erastus 


1827 1829 


2 






SELECTMEN. 






Adams, Matthew 


1805 


1825 


5 


Ford, Harvey 


1855 1856 


2 


Alvord, Eliphaz 


1773 


1774 


2 


" Nelson D. 


1869 


1 


" Jonathan 


1771 




1 


Foskett, Anson 


1843 1852 


3 


Andrews, Lloyd 


1815 


1817 


3 


Fyler, Hilamon 


1857 1858 


2 


Andrus, Abraham 


1773 


1774 





Gibbs, Warham 


1772 1778 


6 


Austin, David 


1772 


1787 


2 


Goodwin, Theodore 


1798 


1 


Beach, Adna 


1799 


1805 


5 


Hall, Gideon 


1811 1846 


9 


Beardsley, Elliot 


1858 


1859- 


2 


Hills, Beriah 


1771 


1 


Beebe, James, 


1809 


1822 


5 


" Huet 


1796 1798 


2 


Beccher, Rollin L 


1854 




1 


" Seth 


1771 1788 


12 


Benedict, Benjamin 


1780 


1788 


5 


Hinsdale, Hosea 


1808 1825 


9 


" Benjamin, Jr. 


1804 




1 


" John 


1861 


1 


Blake, Jonathan 


1828 


1845 


3 


Holmes, Joseph 


1804 


1 


Boyd, James 


1802 


1803 


2 


Hoskins, Silas 


1853 


1 


Bragg, James L. 


1864 




1 


Hubbell, Luman 


1835 1837 


3 


Branard, Othuiel 


1789 


1794 


2 


Hurlbut, Lemuel 


1831 1832 


9 


Bronson, Isaac A. 


1862 


1863 


2 


" Leonard 


1823 1824 


2 


Theron, 


1849 




1 


" Samuel 


1781 1796 


8 


Brownson, Benoni 


1792 




1 


Jopp, Orson W. 


1853 


i 1 


Isaac 


1810 


1820 


4 


Lee, John 


1796 / 




" Levi 


1789 


1812 


- 


Loom is, Abiel 


1805 / 




" Ozias 


1780 


1796 


11 


" Alanson 


1841 1^44 


2 


" Salmon 


1802 


1803 


2 


" Daniel" 


1789 


1 


Camp, Edward 


1870 




1 


" Frederick L. 


1872/ 




" John 


1847 


1861 


6 


" Lorrain 


18P/& 


Case, Lyman 


1836 


1857 


3 


Malery, Elisha 


1 "p2 


l 


Chase, Dudley 


1846 


1848 


3 


Marshall, Reuben 


X 797 !&] 
/I^/S18 

/ m l78H 

r i'02 1803 
•841 1843 
1827 


1 


Clarke, Lucius 


1854 




1 


McAlpin, John 


3 


Coe, Eben 
" Jehial 


1814 
1850 




1 
1 


McCune, Robert 
" Samuel 


7 
fi 


" Jonathan 
" Jonathan, Jr. 
" Nelson D. 


1778 
1819 
1848 


1793 
1825 


2 

7 

1 


Miner, Phineas 
Munsill, Marcus 
Murray, Ammi / 


1 

2 
3 


" Norris 


1825 


1826 


2 


" Daniel 7 


1834 1835 
1857 1872 
1827 1833 
1804 1814 
1861 


1 


" Roger 

" Rozel 

Cook, Reuben 


1806 
1786 
1831 


1822 
1842 


4 
1 

4 


" Frederick / 
Nash, Alva / 
" John J 


2 
7 
5 


" Urijah 


1804 




1 


" Lorenzo/s. 


3 


Drake, Moses, Jr. 


1829 


1830 


2 


Newton, Sam/ e ). 


1865 

1793 1801 . 
1855 1869 . 
1868 ] 
1804 1826 J 


1 


Doolittle, Jesse 
Dunham, Jonathan 


1780 
1792 


1788 
1793 


5 
2 


Norton, Lev/ 
Perkins, Hifrp 


I 
1 


Everitt, Andrew 


1796 




1 


Persons, Wi, 


1 


Frisbee, Joseph 


1785 


1789 


2 


Phelps, D-el 





620 



ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 



SELECTMEN, continued. 



Name. 


First. 


Last. 


So. 


Name. 


First. 


Last. 


fo. 


rhelps, William C. 


1860 


1872 


9 


Thayer, Wheelock 


1829 


1833 


3 


Pine, Samuel W. 


1870 




1 


Wetmore, John G. 


1866 


1867 


2 


Piatt, Levi 


1813 


1814 


2 


" Samuel 


1771 


1775 


4 


" Sylvester 


1836 




1 


" Samuel, 2d 


1797 


1798 


2 


Rice, Lorenzo 


1860 


1864 


2 


Seth 


1799 


1801 


3 


Rockwell, Alpha 


1802 


1807 


4 


Willard S. 


1849 


1856 


3 


Rood, Wm. H. 


1865 


1868 


4 


Whedon, Stephen 


1817 


1819 


3 


\J Rowley, Artemas 


1836 


1854 


10 


Wheeler, Nathan 


1790 


1793 


3 


Russell, Giles 


1814 


1818 


5 


Wilcoxson, Elisha 


1779 


1787 


2 


" Nathaniel 


1789 


1794 


2 


Wilder, Seth L. 


1862 


1863 


2 


Smith, Elislia 


1817 




1 


Wilson, Abijah 


1795 


1801 


7 


" Hcman 


1790 


1800 


5 


Wright, John 


1774 


1785 


2 


" Josiah 


1776 


1788 


7 


" Charles 


1781 




1 


" Josiah, Jr. 


1826 


1827 


o 


Woodford, Erastus 


1826 


1830 


4 


" Zebina 


1790 


1813 


8 


Woodruff, Frederick 


1869 




1 


Soper, Chester 


1829 




1 


" Isaac B. 


1862 




1 


Strong, David 


1871 




1 











COLLEGE GRADUATES. 



Rev. Noble Everett, Ya 


le, 1795 


Abel McEwen, D. D., 


1804 


George Baldwin, 


1811 


John Boyd, 


1821 


Theodore Hinsdale, ' 


' 1821 


Edward Rockwell, 


1821 


Rev. Samuel Rockwell, ' 


' 1825 


Ira W. Pettibone, ' 


* 1854 


Edward It. Beardsley, ' 


♦ 1859 


Rev. John B. Doolittle, ' 


' 1863 


Rev. John W. Alvord, 


berlin. 


Rev. Harmon E. Burr, 


<< 



Rev. Orrin W. White, Oberlin, 

Hiram Wilson, Wesleyan U., 

John C. Holabird, 

Rev. Jonathan Coe, " 

Seth Church, " 

Charles F. Wetmore, Trinity, 

James B. Wakefield, " 

Rev. Leumas H. Pease, Williams, 

Rev. Henry B. Blake, 

George M. Carrington, " 

Benjamin W. Pettibone, Amherst, 



1835 
1841 
1861 
1860 



INDEX TO ANNALS OF WINCHESTER. 






SUBJECTS. 



Baldwin, Rev. John D., 356. 
Bank, Hurlbut, 437. 

" Winsted, 436, 437. 

" Winsted Savings, 137. 
Barkhamsted Light House, 25. 
Bassett, Rev. Archibald, 213, 224, 233. 
Beach, Rev. James, 356, 386-383. 
Booge, Rev. Publiiu V., 182-184, 206, 

212, 213. 
Bride Stealing, 109. 
Building Associations, 445-448. 
Bulkley, Rev. C. H. A., 452. 
Burying-grounds, 66, 72, 278. 



Census, of 1756, 122; of 1771, 82; of 

1774, 122 ; of 1782, 158. 
Cheese-press. 337. 

iPlergymen, 56, 58, 63, 88, 89, 90, 95, 102- 
104, 107, 179, 183, 184, 206,209, 212, 
4 5# 213, 224, 233, 234, 236,237,256, 356, 
357, 396, 397, 453. 
yfton Borough, 431. 
-hi Summer of 1S16, 418. 
ooley, licv. II. E., 357. 
Cunningham, Rev. John, 256. 



Dana, Rev. M. McG., 357. 
Democratic Party, 206. 
Will, Rev. James H., 256. 
' 'wight, Rev. Timothy M., 356. 



Eddy, Rev. Hiram, 452, 453, 466, 467. 
Emigration from town, 44, 45, 223, 224. 
(Enoch Arden, 107, 108. 

'.JFieldpiece (patriotic), 243, 244. 

jFireptace, or " Smoke," 161. 

Fish, 23, 26. 

Freemen admitted, 143, 147, 148. 154 
171, 172, 175, 191, 192, 195, 198, 202, 
207, 211, 213, 226, 228, 230, 231, 234, 
236, 24U, 241. 

French War, 263, 291, 314. 

Game, 23, 25, 26, 34. 
Gav, Rev. Wm. M., 256 
Geese, 233. 

General Training, 221, 222. - 
Goodenonoh, Rev. Arthur, 257. 
' Great Exodus," 47, 224. 
Green, Old Winchester, 221. 222. 

Hard Winter of '83,47,48. 

Harmer's Campaign, 53. 

Hartford Jail-breaking of 1722, 11,12. 

79 



Hartford Votes in town meeting, 10, 12. 
Hawk Catching, 49. 

Independence Dav, Celebration of, 242, 

243. 
Indians, 25. 339. 
Institute, Winchester, 257, 258. 

Jefferson Flood, 224. 

Knapp, Rev. Joshua, 89, 90, 179. 
King, Rev. Salmon, 354. 
Kinney, Rev. Aaron, 354-356. 

Land Title, 9-14. 

Land Grants to various towns, 9-14. 

" " Votes in Hai tforcl town meet- 

ings respecting, 10, 12. 
Land, plan of division of, 17-19, 84. 

" reserved for highways, 19. 

" given to Hartford Ministers, 9, 32. 

" none reserved for Churches or 
Schools, 19, 32. 

" earliest deed of, recorded, 9. 
Lawyers, 55, 342-344,392, 393, 424. 
Libraries, 500-504. 

Manufactures : — 
Axes, 511, 512. 
Augers, 521 . 
Bolts and Nuts, 520. 
Cards, 516. 
Carriage springs, 522. 
Cheese Boxes, 506. 
Clocks, 515,516. 
Coffin trimmings, 522. 
Condensed milk, 522. 
Cutlery, 520. 
Fire Irons, 521. 
Forges, 22, 95. 
Forks, 518. 
Foundries, 518. 
Grist Mills, 506, 507. 
Guns, 46. 

Iron and Steel, 363, 508-511. 
Joiners' tools, 522. 
Leather, 512-514. 
Linseed Oil, 518. 
Lumber, 522. 
. Machinery, 518, 519. 
• Nails, 511. 
Pins, 521. 
Plated ware, 522. 
Saw Mills, 62, 130-132. 
Scythes, 311, 507, 508. 
Tanneries, 371, 373. 
Tools, 519, 520. 



r»22 



INDEX TO SUBJECTS. 



Manufacturi s. continued. 

Wnirons find Carriages, 51G, 517. 
Whiskey. 517. 
Wire 512 

W 1 ii Ware, 505, 506. 

Wooli : ' 514, 515. 

Marsh. Rev. Frederick, 237, 238, 250. 
Masonic < > franiz tions, 199 
Methodism, ri>e in town, 104, 4i»2. 
Method si I hurch al Noppit, 256. 

" " al Wins ed, 402. 

Miles, Rev. Thomas M., 357 
Mim rals, 21. 

New Town, petitioned for, 172. 
Oath of Fideliiy, 134. 
Odd Fellow 500. 

Parsons, Rev. Stephen, 349,350 
Pearson, Rev. Janus!!., .',57- 
Penitent Deacons, 130 
Petitions for incor 75, 76, 81-83. 

one, Kev. Ira, 256, 257, 356. 
Physicians, 50 68, I 9, 396. 
Pierson, Rev. Arthur T., 452. 
Pioneer Settlers, 31-74. 
Pomeroy, Rev. Augustus, 356. 
Poor, rare of by town, 255. 
Post Offices, 362, 431-433. 
Practical Jokes, 276, 277. 

tant Episcopal Church, 439,440. 
Railroads. — Naugatuck, 437-439. Conn. 

Western, 
Revolutionary War. — Town Votes, 122, 

125-27, 128, 129, 134, 135, 137,139. 

!>■ el irati >n of Rights, 127, 129. — 

Soldi rs of, 38, 4 1, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57. 

61, 65, 7ti, 71, 108, 109, 122, 129, II 5. 

1.37, 139, 1-14, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 

161-166, 176, 101, -64,265, 275, 291, 

29S, 305, 314, 

27-30, 102, 251-254, 358,359,376, 

4D4, 448, 449. 
Russell, Rev. II. A., 357. 
Sabba'day Houses, 79, 80. 
St. Francis' K. C. Seminary, 445. 

" " Parochial School, 445. 

St. Joseph's R. C. Church, 444, 44 5. 
St. Margaret's R. C. Fem. Seminary, 445. 
Saracen, i. Fra. Leo da, 444. 
Satan's Kingdom, 25. 
School Costumes and < i 381. 

School Houses, 33, 72, 218, 248,358, 378, 

402, 403. 

School Teachers, 331-383, 403, 428. 
Schools, Common, 198,217-221,379-383. 
Schools, Spelling in, 220, 221. 

" High and Seminaries, 257, 258, 

403, 404, 428. 
Schools, Graded, 488. 

tmen, 254. 
Simons, Rev. Noah, 354, 
Small-Pox, Inoculation for, 207, 208. 

" " PestjHouses, 208. 
Smith, James C, Obituary of, 255. 
Stocks, 242, 243. 
Streams, 23, 24. 



Sunday Traveling, 29, 148, 208. 

Taverns, 29, 37, 97, 202, 210, 244,358, 

378. 
Temperance Reform & Societies, 493-499. 
Trees, When Transplanted, 379. 
I'urnpikes, Green Woods, 211,376. 
" Waterbury, 225. 

Walker, Rev. J. 15. R., 357. 

War of 1812, 267, 274. 416-418. 

War of 1861, 206, 460-487. 

Wedding ( 'ustoms, 109. 

Wetherby, Rev. Charles, 453. 

Whipping Post, 242, 243. 

Will of First Settler, 33. 

Winchester, First Ecclesiastical Society, 

: Organization, 75-78. 
Winchester Society, Petitioners for, 76. 
First Meeting-House, 77, 80. 
Second " 169, 202. 

244. 
Winchester, Third, " 244. 

First Congregational Church, 
86, 88. 
Winchester Constituenl Members, 87- 
" Early Admissions, 87, 88. 

" d and Covenant, 86, 87j 

" Ordination of 1st Pastor, 89. 
" Ordaining Covenant, 89. 

1 " Half-way Covenant, 102, li ., 

140, 143. 
Winchester, Township, Preliminarj ! ' - 

tory, 9-1 t. 
Winchesi r, Proprietors of, 15, 16. 

" Geological Formation, 21. 

" Physical 

" Proprietors' Meetings, 1 5, l i. 

" " Division ol Lands, 

16-19,31. 
Winchester, Town, Incorporation, 81-80. 
" " Organization, 83 

First Officers, 83. 
" First Representation 
in General Assembly, l 18. 
Winchester, New [nhabitants, 93 to 383. 

Meetings, 83 to 300. 
Winsted Society, Petition for [nc< 

lion. 281. 
Winsted, Ancient, 346-355. 
Modern, 355, 357. 
" Ecclesiastical History, 346 
" First Cong. Church, -".57, 453. 
" Second " " orgai ]/■ d, 

153. 
Winsted, Buildings in 1808, 377-379. 

Families 

" Villages, Early Aspect and 

(iron tii 3 i 0, 435. 486. 

Winsted, Borough, 453-456. 

Water Works, T55-457. 
Roads, 358-62. 435, 440. 

" First Meeting-House, 346- 

Second " 355, 860, 

361. 

'.362. 
Woodworth, Rev. Ezra, 351-354. 



SETTLERS AND INHABITANTS SPECIALLY 
WITH THEIR FAMILY RECORDS. 



NOTED 



Acklev, Levi, 319. 
Adams, Mathew, 220. 
Adkins, .lames, 148. 
Adkins, Isaac, 148. 
Agard, Aaron, and Jos., 149. 
Allen, John, 298. 
Albro, Daniel, 
Alvord, Jonathan, 62. 
Alvord, Eliphaz, 62-61. 
Alvord, John, 64. 
Alvord, David, 119. 
Alvoid, James II., 397. 
Alvord, Ruel, 397. 
Andrews, Abm Sen., 105. 
Andrews, Theophilus, 105. 
Andrews, Abm. Jr., 106. 
Andrews, Ens. Dan., 106. 
Andrews, Eli, 106. 
Andrews, Major Lloyd, 195. 
Aiidrews, Dan'] Jr., 106. 

- Elijah, 148. 
ApW , Josiah, 344. 

Stephen, 268. 
A / jd, Capt. Josiah, 47. 
J> J .in, David, 42. 
, , stiu, David Jr., 43. 
I Itfn, John, 267. 

Francis, John, 179. 

B lilej . II lore, 227. 

Bilci m, John Jr., 266. 
BWcom, John Sr., 266. 
Bajcom, Jonathan, 266. 
BsUcom, Nathaniel, 266. 
BaNcom, Elias, 267. 
B^leom, Elias Cabit, 267. 
Baldwin. Samuel W., 236. 
Bjaldwin, Norman, 23 i. 
Baldwin, Reuben, 386. 
Bsurbour, William, 136. 
i; instable, Wm, II I. 
Biirtlett, Samuel, 408. 
B&ssett, Lemuel, 123. 
Biftach, Caleb. 33. 
Beach, Joel, 33-35. 

i, 215. 
Bfeach, John, 120. - 
Bi ach, Rev. James, 120,386. 
Beach, Adna, 1- !. 
Beach, Horace V., 187. 
Beach, bisk, 187. 
Beckley, Richard, 225. 
Beckley, Daniel, Norris, 250. 
Beebc, James. 231. 
Beebe, Da via 
Benedict, ('apt. Benj., 71. 
Benedict, Capt. Timothy, 72, 3. 
Benedict . 1 imo V. Jr.. 72, 3. 
Benedict, Timothy, (•!) 72. 
Benedict, Za'mou, 175. 
Benedict, John, I ,'... 
Benedict, Elijah, 344. 
Bishop, Harry, Leverett, and 

Seth, 412. 
Blackman, Peter, 131. 
Blackman, Nathan, 131. 
Black man, Truman & J. P., 131 
Blake, Elijah, 208 
Blake, Jonathan, 209. 



Blake, Harrv, 209. 
Blake, Ithuel,210. 
Blake, Allen, 210. 
Bovd, James 312-315. 
Boyd, John, 316. 
Boyd, James J I , 316. 
Boyd, Thomas, 321. 
Boyd, Samuel, 316,423. 
Booge, Rev. P. V., 187. 
Bragg, James, 245. 
Bronson, Dea. Levi, 101. 
Bronson, Col. Ozias, 109. 
Bronson, Ozias Jr., 109. 
Bronson, Levi (2), Salmon, and 
A : tel, 11<>. 

Abijah P. & Isaac, 111. 
Bronson, lienoni, 154. 
Bronson, Chauncey and Oren- 

tUS, 15 . 

Bronson, Parliament, 155. 
Brooks, Asaph B., 239. 
Brooks, Samuel and Chauncey, 

239. 
Broughton, Nathan, 175. 
Bull, Merritt, 332. 
Bull, Thomas R., 375. 
Bunnell, Eliab, 386. 
Bunnell, William, 210. 
Burnham, Daniel, 392. 
Burr, Allen, 228. 
Burr, Jehiel, 325. 
Burr, Salmon, 374. - 
Burr, Erastus, 385. 
Burr, Roswell, 385. 
Burr. Halsey,J385. 
Burton, John, 307. 
Butrick, Cyrus, 333. 
Byington, Jesse, 398. 

Camp, Samuel and Moses, 330 
-332. 

Cannon, Timothy, 322. 

Cannon, Thoma 

Carpenter, Bemsley, 391 

Ca e, Wm. R., 193. 
Isher, 239. 

Castel, William, 119. 

Castel, Elijah, 119. 

Caul. Y\ illiam, 407. 

Caul, Charles I 

Chamberlin, Wm., Sr., & Jr., 
155. 

Champion. Nathan, 407. 

Chase, Gedeliah, 345. 

Chase. George, Dudley and Reu- 
ben . 

227. 
lohn, 114. 

Church, Jonal ban , i ii, 145. 

Church, Hiram, 249. 

109. 

' i: ". i land Orrin, HI. 

Clark, Samuel. 131. 
i iniel, 137. 

Clarke, Lemuel, 394. 
Clarke, Lui ius, 395,410. 
Clarke. . esse, .',7.'i. 
Clarke, Nathan W'., 373. 



Coe, Jonathan, 50. 

Coe, Oliver, 51. 

Coe, Robert, Jon., & Oliver, 52. 

Coe, Jonathan, 53, 309. 

Coe, David, 53. 

Coe, Daniel, Eben, 54. 

ir, 198. 
Coe, Jehial, Asahel, 55. 
Coe, Ne 

R.,56. 

('one, Daniel H., 150. 

muel, Warren, 239. 

Cook, I i 

Cook, Ri i 

Cook, Anson, 304 

Cook, Joseph, 333. 

Corbin, Peter, 113. 

Corbin, Peter J r , Daniel, 114. 

. David, 270. 
Crissey, Preserved, Israel, 270. 
Crocker, Wm 
Crocker, .lames, 
Crowe, Henry B., 413. 
Crum, Willi im, 241. 
Curtis, Jared, 232. 

Davis, William, 344. 
Daj ton I, 250. 

Deer, John, 150 
Deer, Jonathan, 151. 

i 132 

DeWolf, Benjamin, 300. 

Daniel, 301. 
Do le, , e, 272. 

Jr., Zera, 272. 
Doolittle, Lyman, 272. 
Douglass. 
Drake, Muse. 24 I 
•- 19. 
Dunham, Jonathan, 
Dudlej , ■ 
Dutton, 

■ .. 124 
ii i • . 156. 
Elmore 

Everitt, Josiah 
Everil 49. 

Everitt, Andre ■ 

Everitt, Rei . i 
Everitt, Noble J., L ; I . 

Fay, Tine I Wm., 132. 

Kay, Gershom, 132. 

iddeu . 308. 
Filley, Wm., 10. 
b'illoj , Abraham, 40. 
Fille, , Rememb mce, 1 

Dai ■•'. ,116. 
Ford. H 

Fri bie, .ios< ph, 1 12. 
Frisbie, Elijah, 112. 



624 



INDEX OF SETTLERS. 



Frisbie, Eli, 207. 
Fvler, Silas, 188. 
Fyler, Roman, 188. 
Fyler, Stephen, Jr., 412. 

Gaylord, Nathaniel B., 

Rockwell family.) 
Qaylord, Henrj I... 426. 

Gaylord, Stephen, '2ffi . 
Gibbs, Warham, 65. 
Gilbert, Samuel, 35. 
Gilbert, Samuel D., 247. 
Gleason, Noah, 60. 
Gleason, Samuel 1)., 247. 
GolT, David. 70. 
Goodwin, Theodore, 189. 
Goodwin, Russell, 190. 
Goucher, William, 399. 
Grant, Roswell, I 70. 
Grant, Miles, 428. 
Griunell, Michael, 305. 
Grinnell, Rufus 
Grinnell, 

Griswold, Phineas, 112 
Griswold, Roswell, L36. 
Griswold, Seth, L35. 
Griswold, Phineas, Jr., 199 
GriswoM, Matthew, 199. 
Grover, Danii I 
Grover, Timothy, 02. 

Hale, .lames, 13 '.. 

Hall, John B., 192. 

Hall, Sylvester. 

Hall, Gideon, 320. 

Hail, Keuben, 411. 

Handee, Barzillai, 282. 

Handee, Clemons & Cyrenus,282 

Hart, Lewis, 21-;. 

Hart. Willard, 249. 

Hart, LuUe, Selah, 299. 
Hart, Stephen, Samuel, 299. 
Hatch, Zepheniah, 190. 
Hatch, Moses, 101, 191. 
Hawley, Samui 
Hawley, Salmon 
Hawley, Eleazer, 406. 
Haj den, Samuel, 273. 
Ha'yden, Seth, 273 
Hayden, Moses 
i: Joshua, 399- 

Higlev, Horace, 322. 
Hill, Wait, 192. 
Hills, Henoui,43. 
Hills, Seth, 44. 
Hills, John, Beria, 45. 
Hills, Jesse, Chauncey, 46. 
Hills, Bennni, 
Hills. Hewitt, 177. 
Hinsd 8, 311. 

Hinsdale, Thi 

Hinsdale, Hosea, 371. 
Hinsdale, Elizi 

0,3s}. 

Holabird, Wm. >.. 121. 

I 
Holmes, Kzra, Seth, 201. 
Holmes, David, 
Holmes, Josep 

Rufus, 335. 
Holmes, Willard, 336. 412. 

336. 
Horton, Jesse, 

Hoskin, Joseph, Si-., & Jr., 61. 
Hoskin, Theo I 
Hoskin, SI 
Hosmi • ., 41. 

Hoyt, Bdicajah, Zeri « 
Hubbard, Elijah, 137. 
Hubbell, SiUlman, 214. 
Hubbell, Luman, 214, 428. 
Humphrey, Chauucey, 210. 



Humphrey, Augustus, 215. 
Hungerford, Reuben, 17:;. 

Hurlbut, (apt. Samuel, 97. 

Hurlbut, Leonard, 98. 

. Lemuel, 99. 
Hurlbut, Stephen, Martin, 100. 

Hu.'.' 

1 1 ;i , i 

Hurlbut, Simeon, 144. 

Jacklyn, Isaac, 230. 
Jenkins, Benjamin, 311. 
Johnson, Isaac, 0t>9. 
Johnson, Benjamin, 391. 
Jopp, John, 295,290. 
Judd, Benjamin, 157. 

Kellogg, Eleazer, 301. 
I- e es, William. 172. 
Kimberl, 
Kingsbury, Geo., 204. 

'■a, Philemon . ; 
Kinney, Kev. Aaron, 
Sheldon, 411. 
. Nisus, 415. 
Knapp, Kev. Joshua, 107. 

Iton, Stephen. 2 

. 96. 
Leach, William, 96. 
"lomon, 344. 

, 344. 

Loomis, icbabod, 117. 

117. 
Loomi '. 118. 

Loomis, Alanson, 425. 

od Jr., 119. 
Loomis, Daniel, 123. 

Loomis, 
Loomis. Wail 

•125. 
Loomis, Asher, 323. 
Loomis, Aaron, 
Lucas, John, 
Lyon, Christopher, 407. 

McAlpine, John, 193. 
McAlpino. Silas H., 194. 

n, Robert, 56. 
McEwen, Gershom, 57. 
Mc wen, Robert. (2) 58. 
McKwen. Samuel, 58. 

ii. Rev. ibel, 
Maltbii , 
Mallon , 
Mallory, Elisha Jr., Amasa, 

Marble, David, 408. 
r, 229. 
Rev. b'rederic] 

II, Ji 'in. i",i 

Oca, 193. 

Merriam, William, 320. 
Merry, Cornell 
Miller, Lewis. 

Miller,. 
Mills, David, ■ 

.271. 
Miner, Reuben, 1 ■ <7 . 
.Miner, John, 121. 

. 121. 
Miner, .'. 
Mitchell, 
Mitchell, 

on, Jr., IT'"*. 
Moore, Dr. Aurou, o^-3. 



Mott, Adam, 36. 
Mott, Jonathan, 37. 
Mott, Adam Jr., Lent., 38. 

Mott, l.oammi,39, 200. 
MnnsiU, Zachi 
Munson, Caleb, 301. 

Murray, David, 178. 

\n:i!,i. 'Jill. 

'■■ a -.. U iai i. W0 

.Nash, John. 170. 

Nash, Alva, !7i. 
North, Martin, 120. 127. 
North, Martin Jr., 127. 
North, Rufus, 127. 
Norton, Levi, 151. 
Norton, Levi (2), 333. 

Oakley, Hawley, 385. 
Alvah,385. 

Palmer, Enoch, 59. 

Palmer, Solomon, 308. 
Parks, Nathani 

Asaph, 423. 
i Alpheus, 376. 

Persons, Timothy, 376. 
I'helps, Daniel, Sr., & Jr., 200. 
Phelps, Lancelot. 207. 
Benj., Frederi 
Phillips, John, 375. 
Elijah, -02. 
Piatt, Daniel, 73. 

Joseph, 157- 

Ivester. Levi ,lr. 
Porter, Eleazt i 
Potter, Daniel, 
i'otter, Phineas, 269. 

Pratt. '. 

Preston, Ebenezer, 35. 
Preston, Josep 
Preston, Samue 

u, Benjamin, 113. 
Priest, Philip, 126. 

Reynolds, Horace, 408. 
Rice, Daniel. . « 

Richards, Eli, 211. 

ts, Joel, 113. 

. Samuel, 152. 
Rockwell, Elihu, 834. 

868. 
Rockwel i . 
Rockwell. Edward, Samuel, -370. 

Simeon, 284. 

Rohrabacker, John, 400. 

i . 235. 

Rowley, Alpb i 
Rowley, Asher 
Rowley, Elias, 

Rowley, - 

, Nathaniel, 

liuss,:; 

Sanford, Henry, 337. 
Sanford, William, 337. 






INDEX OF SETTLERS. 



625 



Schovil, Stephen, 146. 
Scovill, Reuben, 317. 
Seymour, Truman, 324. 
Seymour, Jacob, John, 874. 
Shattuck, Randall, 328. 
Shaw, John, 297. 
Shi pard, Ebeuezer, 265. 
Shepard, Didymus, 168. 
Shepard, .James, 373. 
Skinner, Isaac, 185. 
Skinner, Benjamin, 393. 
Smith, Eleazer, 60. 
Smith, Elisha, Esq., 101. 
Smith, Chauncey, 153. 
Smith, .Ileman, 178. 
Smith. Oliver, 229. 
Smith, Asahel, 235. 
Smith, Josiah 
Smith, Zebina, 
Smith, Elisha, 297. 
Smith, Riley, 423. 
Smith, Theodore, 337. 
Sopor, Chester, 413. 
Spencer, Thomas, 93. 
Spencer, John, 94. 
Spencer, Thomas (2), 95- 
Spencer, Grinnell, 9"). 
Spencer, Stephen, 144. 
Spencer, Elisha, 284. 
S >encer, Ozias, 285. 
Spencer, Norman (1), 416. 
Stanclift, Comfort, 287. 
■■lift, Samuel, 288. 

rd, Abel, 73 
Stannard, Lemuel, 73. 
Snannard, William, 74. 
Stannard, Seth. Ezra 
Starkweather, Elijah, 205. 
weather, Roger, 237. 
I sr, John, 240, 400. 
. f-jug, David, Edwin M., 205. 
Swong, Lyman, 396. 
SWeet, Jonathan, 108,123 

.Tames, lieuben, 123 
g reet, Peleg, 168. 



Sweet, John, 288. 
Swift, Zephaniah, 246. 

Talcott, Wm. O., 424. 
Tallmadge, David, 395. 
Taylor, Eliud. 192. 
Taylor, Silas. 201. 
Thayer, Whe'elock, 413. 
Thompson, Elijah, 153. 
Thompson, Dan., Samuel, 153. 
Thrall, Reuben, 101. 
Tin-all, Erastus, 197. 
Tibballs, Abel, 225 
Tibballs, Nathan, 225. 
Tolles, Amos, 324. 
Treat, Salmon, 306. 
Tucker, Reuben, 62. 
Tucker, Isaac, 232. 
Turrell, Darius 
Tuttle, Geo., 240. 
Tuttle, Daniel G., 114. 

Videto, John Sr.,& Jr., 114. 

Wade, Amasa, Stephen, 115. 
Wade, Isaac, Stephen, 116. 
Wade, imasa Jr., 116. 
■Wakefield, Luman, 409. 
Walter, John, 275. 
Walter, Andrew, Lemuel, 275. 
Walter, Daniel, 276. 
Ward, David, 153. 

Daniel, 157. ^ 

Waterman, Wm. Jr , 305. 
Wells, Asahel, 211. 
West, David Jr., 289. 
West. Judah, 289. 
Westlake, Samuel, 327. 
Westlake, William, John, 327. 
Westlake, Thomas, 328. 
Wetmore, Samui 
Wetmore, John, Abel. 67. 
Wetmore, Seth, Samuel Jr., r <~ 
Wetmore, Samuel (2), 68. 
Wetmore, Truman S., 68. 



Wetmore, John (4), 69. 
Wetmore, John 2d (4), 69. 
Wetmore, Sam'l H., Abel S., 70. 
Wheadon, Solomon, 194. 
Wheadon, Stephen, 194. 
Wheeler, Benjamin, 295. 
Wheeler, Nathan. 296. 

r, Isaac, 298. 
White, Oliver. Sen. & Jr.. 328. 
White, Daniel, 332. 
Whiting, Christopher, 137. 
Whiting, Lorrin, 138. 
Whiting, Riley, 138. 
Whiting, Benjamin, 319. 
Wilcox, Daniel, 329. 
Wilcoxson, Gideon, 108. 
Wilcoxson, Elisha, 125. 
Wilkinson, Lewis, 65. 
Wilkinson, Jesse, 65. 
Wilkinson, Levi, 66. 
Wilkinson, Miles, 201. 
Williams, Jesse, 414. 
Wilson, Abijah 
Wilson, Zenas, 
Wilson, B 

, Abijah Jr., 318. 
Wilson, Nelson, 415. 
Wilson. Daniel B., 319. 
Woodford, Ezekiel, 388. 
Woodford, Era 
Woodford, Ezekiel Jr 

r, 389. 
Woodford, Benjamin B. 
Woodford, E. Sterling 
Woodford, Lucius J., 390. 
Woodruff, Hawkins, 107. 
Woodruff, Jonah, 133. 
Wright, Justus, 171. 
Wright, Lieu:. 
Wright, Samuel, 263. 
Wright, John Jr., 264 . 
Wright, Charles, 264. 
Wright, Freedom. 265. 
Wright, Norton 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Only one reference is made to a pag •, though the name maj be rep 
Slight or accidental variations in the spelling of names 'are not noticed. 



Abbott. 243. Abby, 16. 
Aberucthy, 101. Abrewor Abro, 

149. " 
Ackley,62, 64, 74,228, 319. 
Ainu's 139, 149, l-s9, 226,374, 
HO, 122, 125,426,431, 

484. 161. 
Adkius, 43, 148, 158, 162, 468, 

476. 
Agard, 46, 51, 87, 126, 147-149. 
Albert, 464, 468. 
Albro, 800, 327,407 Alden 162. 
Aldridge, 292. Alexander, 314. 
Allen, 29, 16, 67, 174, 226, 298, 

134,474 
Alvor.l, 26, 62-6 1,67, 83-85, 88, 

L07, L19, 129, 134,140, 143, 

L46-14 157, 158, 

164, 165, 168, 172, 

2 i6. 211, 212, 

217, 218. 225, 211, 289, 297, 

L, II : . 

3, 52, 56, 57, 58, 
66, 71, 72, LOS, L06, 134, 
U7. i i\ 160, 165, 17:!, 179, 

3, L88, L93, 

248,249,273 
4JT, 164. 468, 17". 
Andros, 9, LO, 8 
Andrus, 1".. 04, 158, 165,373. 
18, 844,880. 
371. 
Anii-i i 
Arnold, 15, 14 4, 161-163, 165, 

Asbley, 1 

Atkins, .463. 

[Atwater, 

Atwood, 227. 

. 22,42,43,67, F0, 71,76, 
77. 1 -:;, - 105, L07, 

129, 134, 143, L48, L50, 163, 

268, 267,280,288, 2 

' 
507. 

ATen ' i 1 Av- 

83, S5, -;. L64. 
Ayrault, £26, 

Baron, L79 L80, 188. L95. 196, 

1, R2, 187,226, 227, 
230,278. i.i. ii 

1«>1, 179,517 

I, 165, 
223, 2 
288, I 

Baldwin, 120, 175, 191,236, 240, 



248,296,297,317, 324,334, 
356, 3^ I 388, 391, 101, 151, 
476,47," i - 
Ball, 516. Bancroft, 196, 
Ban He, 249, 3 10, 516. 

-,302. 
. 116, 195, 199, 20 
210,226 

Barbour, 102, 135, 136, 150. 

, 327. 
Barnes, 110, 298, 321, 32 

l, 14 ;. 

Barnum. 16. 

>tt, 116,403, 409,419,420. 
Barton, 144, 1 S9 

177. 
la 
Bassi I 

158,173,213 
234,2 

Batcheller, *18, II t, 430, 434, 
464,4 

Battell, 58. 

Beach, ix, 17, 32-35, 40, 44, 
76,83,84, 87, 97, I 

187,199. 208-210, 215, 234, 
241, 311, 812,317 

| 
337, V. 153, 464,469, 

ll, 306, 

401,403,413, 427. 134, 136, 
451, I 

Beck, 

Beckle L76, 199, 225, 

Beebe, 3^.5s, 111, I 

156, 211, 272. 

• I 

18. Uelknap, 314. 

124. 

. 38, 89, 185. 

: ',471, 

Bemis, 203. 

Benedict. '12, 71-73, 85, 89, 106, 
110, 111, 117, 1 1. 129, I3t, 

192, 198, 
210, 211, 218, 
217, 22 

Benham, 296, 841, 1-7. 
Benjamin, 16. Beutley, 110. 



Bentou, 16,310. 

It, 165. Berry, 440. 
B. rins, ' 18, 104. 

:<, 340, 

a in. 470, 472, 479. 
Bills, 12 

Bird, 50, 259,316, 515. 
BirdsaU, 434, 451. 
Birminj 

i 328, 388, 399, 412, 

i.62. 171. 1,5. 192. 196. 

2 15, . 

I 513. 

1 
a, 319. 
Bluit, 464. 

I. 
oe). 119, 124, lS'Jr 

Booth. 

136,522. Bo 
ix, ■ 

Bowdish,239. Bow 

Bown, ! 

Boyd, viii, 53, 95, 100,144, 2m; 

113 

4H2, I < 
151, i >7, i 

i. 42 !. 
Bradley, 73, 85, 89, 125, 163, 

Bradn 

155, 15;, 179 

, I >9. 

1 183 
Brintneli or Brin i e, 214. 

116, it; 

186, 138, 1 

■ 
Brooks 62, 89, 113, Hi 

Brougham, 175. 

Brown, 4B, 96, 1SS, 235, 



INDEX OF NAMES 



627 



309, 320, 334. 350, 353, 393, 
(12,461.4*3,464, 468, 
473-475, 479, 191, 192, 518. 
i (see Branson | li 9- 
112, 129, 134, 139, 113, 147, 
154, 155, 157. 158, 162-164, 
173, 177 I8n, 1-4, 191. 207, 
217. Li 

.14. Buchler, 292 
ckingham, 15, 452, 462, 463, 

! . 312. 

1 2 1 ; i 

5, 401, 

507. 

I i 243, 328. 

15, 16, 241, 271, 330, 
ftl, :■; - 
. »74. 
■T. 15, : i, 29, 54, 11 



6, 124. 

Bun oj h 01 
rtj 287, 370, 371, 426,511. 

,411,465, 

4 ..;. : 

50, 279,317. 500. 
fl- I;' I ' Od, 332, 

L, 51 ! 

I , 

H8,5ii. 

3li, ; ;7. 

(fell, 374, 123. 

li 114, 320. Calahan, 469. 

94, 119, 121, 
(87, 223, 249, 269, 284, 
: ' 17, 319- 

380 332, 337, 
171. 378, 379, 388, 391, 151, 

133, 434 

465, 489, 500, 

178. 
Beld, 89, 175, 185, 348,367. 

, 322. 

nnnan, 476. 
ler, 62. 
176. 
6, 47 1 . 

95, - 11 
i I 5, 193, 195, : 

ustle), 109, 119, !•;., 
i 9, 165, 171,306. 
', 424. 
1 
■ ,210, 234,406,407. 

155, 159, IT-, 
187,214, 286, 241,245,371, 
5<)(t. 
ambers, 294. 

lamnion, 269, 296, 337, 394, 
4U7, 518. 



Chapin, 285,365. 

ChapmaD, loO. Charles II, 128. 

Chase, 53, 74, 109, 136, 150, 151, 
248, 253, S3S, 345, 380. 

Chatferton, 286. 

Chattgum, 25, 230,231. 

Chauncey, 291. 

Chickley, 226, 227. 

Christ} , 213. 

Chubb, 267. 272, 284. 

Church, 15, 98, 134, 144, 145, 
154, 1?9, 163, 165, 177, 190, 
192,229, 236, 240. 248, 249, 
299,3; 

Claiicey, 469. Clapp, 376. 

Clark, 38, 39, 100, 107, 125, 130, 
131, 134, 136, 137, 159, 160, 
177, 192, 200, 210, 218, 228, 
234,241 259,271, 

283,286, 321. 627,373,374, 
394, 475, 476,500, 521. 

Clarke, 287, 312, 315, 335, 392, 
394,39.7,402,410, 
436, 476,489, 500,502, 507, 
509,510,516,520. 

Clary, 457, 520. Claudet, 465. 

i layborn, 278. 

Clement, 301. 

Clemmons, 207. 301, 322. 

Cleveland, 56, 209,234,297,307, 
332,392,469,411. , 
476. 
99. 

i oe, 37, "46, 50-56, 61, 65, 69. 
76. 82, 83. 86, so 
101, 102, 10S, 113, 116, 118, 
124-126, 129, 134, 135, 142, 
143, I 167, 159, 

101-165, 172, 175, ISO, ISO, 
192, 13 

-14, 217, 218,21 

16 248, 257,270, 
■ 
309, 316, 318, 321, 322, 329, 
332, 335,343.341,358,372, 
379, 380,390,395,399,412, 
414, 416, 419, 420, 423, 425, 
439, 410, 464,465, 468,470, 
478, 479. 516. 

Cogswell, 471. 175,480. 

Coit, 134, 148, 157, 158, 163, 
172, 184, 197,205, 221, 
210, 2. : 

Cole. ! 

Coleman. 220 Collier, 188. 
9 5'2. 
Colton, 16. 

Comins, 476, 477, 479. 

Commerford, 218. 

98, 134, 110,150,159,162, 
239,245,384, 451 4S9. 

Conklin, 465, 467. 

Converse, 162. 

Cook, 15 L6 50 52, 59, 76, 83, 
85. 132, 148, 154, 156, 158, 
159, 162, 165,171, 225,226, 
241, 248, 284, 286. 293, 302 
-304, 306, 323, 327, 33U, 341, 
375, '380. 393, 397, 402, 403, 
407, 416, 419, 451, 454, 457, 
166, 476-479, 494, & '6, 
509,510,512,513, 519,520, 
521. 

057,453,472. 

Cooper, 132, 291, 465, 46' 
177. 

Corbin, 49, 71, 109. 113, 114, 
131. 147. 154, 159,162, 103, 
!, 207. 

ey, 370, 

Cothren, 282. Couch, 465, 478. 

Covey, 248, 516. Covill, 104. 

Cowdry, 110. 

Cowles, 114, 148, 174, 215, 247, 



282,301,306,317,336, 371, 

422. 
Coy, 174, 176, 188,226. 
Cramer, 124. 
Crane, 195, 317, 407,494. 
Cravath, 64. I rei swell, 433. 
Crisse, 160, 165. 
Crissey, 143, 152, 205. 265,268- 

V270, 283, 309, 322,371. 
Crittenden, 465 
Crocker, 72, 118, 170, 191,199, 

209. 211, 225,230. 
Cromwell, 484, 499. Crosby, 521. 

Crowe, 281. 287, 352, 401, 411, 

413, 420, 516. 
Crum, 171, 241. 
Culver, 71, 107, 298, 408,415. 
Cumming, 391, 4 ,3. 
Cummings, 236, 401. 
Cummins, 322. 
Cunningham, 256. 
< 'nrtire, 204. Currie, 54. 
Curtis, 40, 70, 113, 107, I 

202,231.265,248, 279. 

322,331,S35,34o: 
Curry, 278- Cutler, 476. 

Daley, 469. ■ 

Dana, 657.395,453. 

Daniels, 463, -108, 170, 475-477, 

480,481. / 

Darbe, 268,275, 281,300. 
Davis, 272, 290, 312. 326, 333, 

014, 370. 380 
Daw, 72 

Day, 16, 47, 89. 185. 
Dayton, L10, 10 217.250, 463, 

■174. 476,478, 480. 
Dean, 245, 270. 

Deer), 15 , 151, 159. 180, 

192. 220. 
Dearthick, 320, 321. 
Decker, 165, 478. 
I ■' ind, 285. 
Deming, 16, 2C3, 291, 335, 384, 

472. 
Dempsey, 463, 468, 170, 471. 

480. 
Dennan, 465. Dennerj 
Dennis, 373. Denny, 162. 
Denslow, 427. 

Derby, 101, 105,275. 
Detert, 478. Dewey, 461, 478. 
De Wolf, 292, 300, 301, 309. 336, 

380. 
Dexter, 214, 287, 384, 427. 
Dibble, 339. 
Dickinson, 16, 100, 267, 304, 

373. 
Didsbury, 464. Dill,! 
Dilley, 476. Dimiek, 152. 
Dimoek, 516. Diomedes, 445. 
Dixon, 432. Dodd, 10. 366. 
Dodge. 130,10,2, 134. 169, 164. 
Dolphin, 147, 159, 103,480. 
Doolittlc, 40, 07. 58; 147, 100, 

202,213.220. 271, 272,275, 
10.299, 318,319, 

837. 355, 358, 359, 

607. 378, 383, 423,506. 
Dorman, 453. 
Doughty, 465, 489. 
Douglass, 207, 226, 319, 333, 

380, 480. 
Dowd, 266, 272, 318. 
Downs, 802, 476, 477, 480, 482. 
Doyle, 476. 
Drake, x 32, 40, 41,52,60,170, 

174, 177, 188, 195, 232, 246, 

249, 256, 365, 371. 
DuBois, 384. 
Ducher, 162. 
Dudley, 118,150,182,250,289, 



628 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



878, 

513, 






312,329-331,343, 373, 
4(14,425,426,433,434, 
451,454,474,43- 
614. 

Dugan, 478. 

Dunham, 160, 278, 2£ 

Dunn, 489- Dunnin 

Durand, 476 

Dutton, 73, 85, 202, 331. 

Dwight, 356. 

Earne, 462. Easton, 15, 16 

152, 453, 462, 463, 
_ 
Edgecomb, 271. 

13,411,601. 
191. 
Kggleston, 53, 93, 100, 119, 

;:0, 473, 474, 

I, '32. 

124,134, 
165, I 
Elmoi i 

Emerson, 

. 340. 

.'!68. 
Ensign, 12, 15, L6, 42, 133, 

176,477,480. 

Everitt, 

i. H7, 

149, 151, L53, L54.157, 
169 I 

:, 241,246, 
ETitts, 



ner, 18. 

04. 
Farns ',4i2. 

Farrand, 89,102, 103 

12,134, 

Felix. 

re, 477,480. 

85, 87, 

163, 165, 

186. 2 
Finn, 4 
FJtch.ll, 12, 

Fitzpatri 

Fleming, 471, 476, I 

. 874. 
Flynn 

176, 179, 191. 
Forbi •;, 419, 

Ford, li 

Fowli 

Freem 

i i 



466, 



159, 



::i, 



109, 134, 164, 191. 
Frisbey, 151. 

L12, 159, 207, 233, 321, 

Frissell, 239. 

• i 

189,191, 
207, 2i i8,256, 297, 
317, 322, 325, 337, 374, 390, 
410, 412, 415! 

Gage, 118. Gale. 463. 

icr, 250, 259,516. 
Galpin, 190. Gannon, 469. 
Gardiner, 470. Garrett, 68, 478. 
Garrison, 461. Garson, 469. 

mc, 458, 520. 
GaskiU '. 9 t. 

n! 375, 516. Gates, 266. 
Gay, 256. 
Gaylord, 64, 167, 173, 207, 209, 

230,:: .403,410, 

422,425, W0, 512. 518,522. 
Gibbs, 65, 66, 77,83,85,88, 126, 

127, L34, 161, 162,217, 336, 

374, 476, 477, 48il. 
Giddings, 461. 
Gilbert, 16. 18, 35, 54, 106, 112, 

153,174, 17 . 

134, 47o, 

471, .516. 

Gilleck, 444. Gilles,501. 
Gillett. 212. 286, 290, 303, 323, 

Gilman, 16, 296, 376, 488, 489, 

522. 
Gleason, 36, 11, 60. 83, 85,126, 

1 a IT-. ; !0 76, 276. 
in, 463. 

1, 82, 83, 85, 
. 160, 161, I 
320. 
Gold, 29. Goodenough, 257. 

n, 16. 
Goodrich, 93, 266. 
Goodwin, 16, 94, 100, 131, 189, 

190, ■ 
Gouchi 

I, 465, 468, 17 i, 477. 

228, 247, 

312. 
477,480, 517. 

Greiner, 

< 
Grinnel 

. 71, 107, 

133,143 

119, I 

I, 120, 181, ll". 

Hamlin, 208, 290. 



Hancock, 344. Handee, 282. 
Harden, 53. Harmcr, 53, 163 
Harris, 313, 463, 465, 469, 486, 

507. 
Harrison, 369, 432. 
-Hart, 62, 72, 89, 107. 11 

213, 214, 226, 237, 246-24V. 
275,299,301, 332,:. 
3S5, 386, 476, 477, I 
Hatch, 69, 96, 144, 155, 167, 164, 
1S3, 190, 191, 200,201, 226, 
151, 465. 
Hawkins 

Uawlcv, 167, I i 296, 323, 
367,371 : !, 170, 471. 513. 
Harden, 29, 133, 1 i 
" 273, 27 
350.- 

1 

!C, 16. 

Hazzard,480. Heal'. 

516. 
Hendricken, 444. 
Hen-haw, 18.228,295. 
Hermance, 516. 

Herrick, 307. 

Hewitt, 178, 289, 399. 400, 470, 

507. 
ftickox, 334. Hicks, 
I 
322,323,358,378, jf2, 428, 
427, 

i. i 
ix, 9,41,43-47,6<W66,67, 

123, 129, 130, 134, i:», 143, 

144, 143-148, 15 '. 1 >1, 153, 

J 177 

/ 108, 

217,221,341,377, 
Hinkle\ , 

Hinman, 47,49, 51, 161. 
Hinsdale, 82, 53, 



104,410, 115, 11 

. "•ll..';.{, 514. 

Hiscock, 95. 
IHtchcock, 2 . 

115, 183, 13.1 

417. U 
•18. 

' 
i: 

194. 

li.. ill.. 

Hurl- hi. 

177, 4 

- 
lli 119, 134, 135, 137, 142, 

li I,1HX1 

178. 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



629 



Uosmer. 16. 81, 41, 49, 76, 77, 

85.' 
Hotchkiss.289,424. 

House, 422. 426. 

Howard, 64, 397, 465, 468. 

Howe, 424, 445, 521. 

Hoy t, 27, 114, 192, 204,205, 226. 

' 232, 42:-!. 
Hubbard, 16, 41, 66, 100, 137, 

159, 232, 287, 315, 394, 398, 

433,476,477, 4S0. 
Hubbell, 53, 54, 108, 132, 156, 

200, 214, 228, 258, 312, 315, 

390, 399, 42o, 425, 44o. 
Hudson, 109, 147, 162, 163, 266, 

314,317,374,414 
Hulbert, 312. 327, 363, 377, 403, 

407,451.509,510. 
Hull, 106, 191, 206, 469, 474, 

476, 477, 480. 
Humiston, 476.480. 
Humphrey, 23, 46, 49, 74, 98, 

110.114,125, 194, 195,210, 
215, 230, 330, 434, 451, 509. 

Hungerford, 173, 230, 246, 256, 
271. 

Huntington, 34S, 365, 366. 

Huntting, 116. Hurd, 271. 

Hurford, 315. 

Hurlbut, 25, 46, 69, 93,96-101, 
112, 119, 125, 126, 134, 135, 
144-148, 150, 154, 157, 159, 
162, 164, 165, 169, 173, 179, 
180, 182, 185, 187, 190-192, 
194, 200, '202, 203, 207, 208, 
210, 211, 221-223, 226, 233, 
234, 239, 240, 243, 244, 246, 
247, 249, 252, 259, 293, 298, 
302, 205, 300, 328, 311, 244, 
367, 408, 414, 437, 474, 476, 

477, 480, 482. 
Hyde, 121, 201, 388. 

Irving. 502. Isaacs, 370. 
Isaiah da Scanno, 445. 
Ives, 38, 195, 201, 213. 

Jacklyn, 136, 196, 204, 230, 231. 

Jackson, 342, 424. 

James IT., 10. 

Jaqua (Jaques), 107, 304, 394. 

Jarvis, 68. 

Jefferson, 224, 431. 

Jencks, 511. 

Jenkins, 95, 144, 207, 213, 214, 
271,273, 274,311, 312, 315, 
327, 363, 375, 378, 385, 391, 
401,408, 409, 419,433,507, 
508, 509 511,512. 

•Jennings, 114. 

Johnson, 34, 118, 125, 138, 215, 
218,231,301, 339, 308,391, 
309, 407, 502. 

Jones, 16, 190, 321, 499. 

Jonson, 88. 

Jopp, 272, 276, 295,296. 

Joslin,414. 

Judd, 16, 72, 154, 157, 159, 408. 

Judson, 88. 

Keegan, 476. Keen, 316. 

Keeler, 521. 

Eeem . 15, 16. 

Kell. •-. 16. 159. 165, 170, 219, 

241, 270,281,301, 805, 331, 
: 

463, 467, 477, 478. 
KeNev. It;. 112, 113, 202, 265, 

329 
Kent, 173. 312. 370, 476, 477, 
'* 480. 
Hermann, 465. 
Keyes, 54, 90, 134 (Kies 165). 

172, 2&8. 

80 



Keys, 468. 

Kil'born, 16, 434. 

Kilbourn, 9, 96, 118, 373 

Kilburn, 69. 

Kimberly, 177, 178, 230. 

Kin-, 274,354. 

Kingsbury, 204, 205. 

Kinney, 264, 298, 299, 319, 320, 
325, 333, 334, 354-356, 389, ' 
400,4(4,411,412, 415. 420, 
474, 478, 483, 501, 616. 

Kirby, 186, 417. 

Kirk'ham,54, 338. 

Kirkum. 342-341, 378, 395, 401, 
402. 

Knapp, 62, 89, 90, 102-105, 107, 
126, 134, 135, 139-143, 147, 
148, 160, 167, 173, 178, 179, 
182, 185,189,217, 244, 331, 
412. 

Kuowlton, 160, 162, 226, 269, 
276, 283, 284, 330, 331, 358. 

Laird, 293. Lake, 108. 

Lamb, 427. 

Lambert, 210, 337. 

Landon, 372, 30S. Larned, 58. 

Latham, 279,465. 

Lathrop, 144, 339, 363, 365, 457, 
520. 

Latimer, 58, 97. 

Latourette, 110, 174. 

Lawrence, 27. 176, 368,378. 

Lawton, 203. 

Leach, 93, 96, 159, 162, 163, 165, 
102, 320. 

Learning, 67. Leavitt, 101. 

Lee, 55, 70, 89, 104, 185, 233, 
243, 317. 368. 

Lomlev.338,344, 380. 

Leo da Saraceua, 444, 445, 472 

Leonard, 131, 170, 178, 195, 234, 
463,468,469. 

LeRoy,285,399,476, 477. 

Lewis, 64, 108, 117, 123, 187, 304, 
305, 324, 378, 388, 426, 440, 
473,513. 

Lina, 478. 

Lincoln, 461, 463, 475, 516, 517. 

Litchfield, 139. 

Lockwood, 187, 275, 286, 297, 
303. 

London, 172. 

Long, 369. 

Loomis, 44, 52, 54, 59-61, 71, 73, 
76,85,87,88, 101, 109, 111, 
117-119, 123, 134, 135, 139, 
148. 151, 154, 159, 163, 165, 
186, 188, 193, 196-198, 203, 
207,208,211,215, 216, 227, ! 
228, '.34, 243, 250, 270, 301- 
303, 309,319,323,329, 332, 
358, 365,371,380,381,419, 
423, 425,427, 433,466,513, 
514, 521. 

Lord, 15, 461. Losaw, 475. 

Lotherington, 474. 

Lovejoy, 461. 

Loveland, 67, 191. 

Lucas, 101, 111. 162, 180, 207, 
I , 323. 

Lyman, 66, 189, 324, 378, 389. 

Lynch, 444. 

Lyon, 61,315,407. 

McAlpine, 70, 98, 111, 112,130, 
154, 155, 193, 194,207, 228, 
I !, . 479,506. * 
McBeth, 258. Mc< aule; I 
McCrary, 384. 
McCullock, 307. 
McCune, see McEwen. 
McDermot, 478. 
McDoel, 315. 



McDonald, 278,409. 
McEntire, 266. 

McEwen (McCune, Mackune and 
Macune), x,33, 41, 45. 56-59; 
68. 76, -3. 85, 87, 89, 108, 
120, 131. 134, 137,139,143, 
144, 14H- lis, 159 165, 184, 
208,207,217,218 221 226 
231,307. 

McKarland, 444. 

McGnire, 465. 

McNeil, 190. Maddra, 478, 479. 

Mallory, 138, 240, 208, 286,, 287, 
295, 306, 318, 324, 330, 334, 
349, 373, 413. 

Maltbie, 317, 406. 

Manchester, 54, 64, 107, 284,288, 

322, 478. 
Mangan, 444. 

Marble. 296, 408, 409, 419, 42C , 
424. 

Marcum,137. Mars, 229. 

Marsh, x, 63, 90, 97, 102, 103, 109, 
114, 159, 170, 180,212, 234, 
237-239, 250, 256, 317, 46,5, 
468, 478. 

Marshall, 45, 50, 53, 94, 95, 150, 
151, 150, 173, 188, 192,193, 
195, 199, 200, 207-209, 213, 
221, 228, 230, 288, 307, 321, 

323, 327, 332, 333, 336, 369, 
416,501.514. 

Martin, 327, 465, 476, 477,481. 

Marvin, 270, 411. 

Mason, 264. Mather, 296. 38( 

Mathews, 341. Matson, 396. 

May bee, 273. 

Meachiim, 170, 243. 

Mead, 266, 305, 334. 

Meeker, 100. Meekin, 16. 

Merriam, 320. Meigs, 162. 

Merrill, 15, 39, 100, 238, 268, 
408 

Merrinirrn, 194. Merry, 41. 

Miles, 187, 319, 357, 416, 453. 

Millard, 317. 

Miller, 30, 52, 53, 205, 241, 249, 
274, 288, 304, 306-309, 320, 
329, 373, 380, 382, 391, 392, 
403, 404, 409, 411, 483, 484, 
501, 513, 516. 

Millinian, 470. 

Mills, 77, 140, 150,160,165, 167, 
182-184, 192,207, 212, 226 
230,271,272,281,283, 297, 
321, 344,340, 393. 394, 0; 

Miner (Minor), SO, 105,107, LO 
123-125, 131, 132, 134, 139, 
143,150,159,165,171, 179, , 
187,202.205,211,212, 219, 
234, 235. 240, 249, 325. 

Mitchell, 2o9, 226, 258 320,400, 
401,404.413,516. 

Moncl, 314. Monroe, 431. 

Monson, 171. Mooney. 469. 

Moore, 11, 68, 156, "l7o, 209, 
227, '.36, 286, 307, 325, 344, 
352,395,409, 465,468, 476, 
478.488,520,522. 

More, 302. 

Morgan, 110, 422, 500, 512. 

Morlej , 428 Morris, 163, 478. 

Morse, 220, 396, 403, 463. 

Mott,ix,17,29,36-41, 50,76,82, 
S3. .-5, 87, 108, 112, 132- 
134, 143, 159, 101. 162, 165, 
107. 200, 213. 

Mudge, 270. 

Mullen, 411, 400, 472. 

Munger, 181, 248. 

Munro, 315. 

Munsill, 41, 57,59, 78, 93, 111, 
127, lit. 140. 192, 195, 201. 
202. 231, 241,321. 



630 



INDEX OF NAMES 



Munson, 94. 164, 155, 198, 235, 
245,293,301,318, 376, 330, 
881,396,411,412, 436,494, 
507. 

Murdoek, 318. 

Murray, 51, 107, 125, 131, 137, 
)7'\ L93, l9o, 206,218, 228, 
234,239,240,400, 408,469. 

Nash, 69, 112, 119, 156, 170-173, 
1*4,21*. I'll. i". t. ;,i;.. 

Neal,37, 237. Nearing, 114. 

Neth, 36. Nevins, 165. 

Newell, 89, 102, 103, 185, 268. 

Newman. l"i!, 163,468,478,486. 

Newton, 246, 396. 

Noble, 17, 312,372,408. 

Norcross, 293. 

North, 50, 101, 114, 126, 127, 
129, 134, 137, 140, 143, 152, 
159, 172, 174, 188, 234, 240, 
256. 

Northrup, 393, 409. 

Northwaj - |:; "■■ 

Norton, x, 20. ', 1. "i. 120,150-152, 
151, 159, 179, 180,201, 219, 
228,283,234,257,263, 264, 
272,279,287,298,305, 320, 
329,331, 333,334,365, 386, 
401,406,413,428,489. 

Oakley, 61,228,299,308, 885. 
Ogden, 509. O'Gorman, 444. 
Olcott, 16. Olmsted, 16. 
Orr, 311, 507. Ortou, 293. 
Orris, 131. 

Osi.m-ii. ::::;, 3*o, ::-t. 111. 
Overton, 476, 479. 
Oviatt, 289. Owen, 104. 

Packard, 165, 468, 171. 

Page 153, 10 I, 163, 474. 

Palmer, 59, 56, 89, 

101, 1":', U3, 135, 139, 159, 
160 162, 165, 188, 281, 2-:;, 
805,308,328, 334, 34 >. 351, 
484,468-471, 181, 494, 517. 

Pantry, 16,41,42 

Parcels 211 Parkant, 169. 

Parke, 392. 108, 127. 184 

Parker, 293 Parks, 336 

Parmele, 1 50. 

Parsons, 125, 117. 163, 320. 330, 
:;i i. :>,;■>. :; ... ill. 151, 189. 

Partridge, 305. 

Patterson, ix, 368. 

Patton, 211. 

Payne, 227. Peake, 393. 

Pear on, 357, 153, 166 

1 ... 50,202,272,386,378, 
123, 170, 171. 478, 183,494. 
897, 128, 166,468. 

Peet,327. 

Pellett, 16. 16. 

Pendleton, 1. 1. 465. 

Percival, 21, 164. 

Perkins, 803. 386. Perret, 65. 
, 427. 

Pei 344,376,607. 

Pettib i i ■. 1 13, 266, 257, 342, 
347,356, 153,472 

Pettit, 

Phelps, 15,29,61, 99, 100, 128, 
181, 200, 21 !, 231 23 234 
237,24 840,849, 

852, 355 110,436, 

137 154, I--. 515,621. 

Phillips, 186. 171. 2 

: I IP, 151, 

Phipp ■mi'. . 237. Pi 

Pierci 

I 116, 178 

Pierpont, 291. Pierson, 462. 

Pine, 470. 



Pinney, 170, 232, 329,409. 
Pitkin, 15, 17,28,32, 77,341. 
Piatt, 57, 60, 64, 73, 85, lor,, 126, 

135, 142, 154, 157, 159, 165, 

1st, is i, 195, 208,217, 218, 

220, 226, 259, 514. 
Plumb, 310. piummer, 370. 
Poisson, 16. Polk, 432. 
Pomeroy, 356. 
Pond, 177, 194, 325, 337, 407, 

465. 489. 
Pool, 473. Porson. 102. 
Porter, 15, 16, 51, 117, L60, 180, 

220, 231, 20,1, 2*5,315,35*. 
Potter, 73, 88, 111, 113, 157,1011, 

105, 229, 230, 269, 270, 281, 

2*3, 2*1, 290, 2.10, 35*, 369, 

378,384, 463. 
Pratt, 15, 10, 74, 100, 175, 226, 

244, 288,320,366, 381, 382. 
Fresher, 403. 165. 
Prescott, 271, 292,294. 
Preston, 17, 33, 35, 36, 40, 42, 
\ 59, 71, 70, 85, 87 -89, 108, 

109, 113, 120, 135, 136, 143, 

117, 15$ 102, 163, 105, L86, 

211,217, 220, '211,331. 470. 

477,481. 
Price, 107, 175, 196, 465. 
Priest, 59. 73, 120, 135,165,217. 
Prince, 307. 

Prince (Negro), 144, 1 16, 162. 
Proper, 469. Pryor, 1*7, 189. 
Putnam, 151, 164,329, 499. 

Quigley, 470. Quhra, 11 1. 

Race, 874. Rainsford, 197. 

Rankin, 478. 

Ranney, 416, 420, 426, 513. 

.. ;j7*. 
Raymond, 177, 271. 
Re ( i, L51, 20.. 367. 
Reeve, 63, 124. K.-i,lv, 489. 
Reynolds, 111, 329, " 408, 476, 

' 477. 
Rhodes, 2n7. 

Rice, 230, 235,398, 467,620. 
Richards, 119. 241,393,613. 
Richardson, 111. 407, 471, 17s. 
Riley, 191,200,201,207,226. 
Rising, 331, 339. 
Robbins, 86, 39 90, 109, 167, 

182 185,212, 

213,2:H, 2'i2,470. 
Robert,, 15, 29,65, 0,7, 86, 88, 

89, 102, 103, 109 113. 127. 

1 10 162, 159, 162, 105, 171, 

175,186, 24n, 2S5. 

869, 108, 103,465,468,474, 

478, : 
Robins, 17, 3 i9 

Robinson, 187. P*,212. 

Rockwell, 68, 105, 10 i, 108, 113, 
123, 131, 132, 15H, 22s, 265, 
288,298, 303, 312, 816, 819, 
321, 02,', 830, 334, ! 

. 363 372, 376, 
■ ■ 
I'H, 1 :;, p., in, 411,413, 
115. U8 121, 12".. 426, 428, 
•151, 1.51. 157, 494, 
508, 509, 510, 513, 514, 616. 

1; idman, 1 70 

Rogers, 160. 195, 214, 2i 
' 284. 809, 858, 176, 478, 181. 

Rood 98, 1 ' 

Ki.,#. 16, 1 I, 119, 121, 234 

Rorab ich 1 Roberbacher, ' 

bacher), 2,2, 874, 409,406. 
1: .-.-. 32;, 169. 
Rossiter, i0. 
I Rowe, 470, 478, 4*1,483. 



120, 160, 162, 
226. 228, 240, 

207, 276-279, 
306, 318, 320, 
18. 375, 
4110, 4 10-411. 
126, 470, 479, 



120, 157, 176, 
332, 169, 170 
211,235, 286, 
• ;io, 347, 357, 
•153, 166, 601. 



Rowley, 97, 101, 
188, 200, 219, 
241, 263, 200, 
281,288, 284, 
322, 328, 33' », 
885,891,897] 

415, 122, 425, 

483. 
Royce, 181. 
Rugg, 94, 96, im 

187,188, 252. 
Russell, 16. P2, 

290 294, 297, 

:;- 1. 382, 339, 
Rutherford, 99. 



Sacket, 297, 399. 
Sage. 55, 138, 171,195,246,324, 
394,407,465,476. 

St. Clair, 469. 

St. Francis d'Assissi, 444, 488. 

St. Margaret of Oortona,444, 488. 

Salter, 370. 

Sandortorlh. 1(17, 108, 125, 171. 

Sanford, 51. 62, 116, 292, 337, 

378, H2. 440. 
Saxton, 1*5, 247. 
Schermerhorn, 400. 
Schmi.lt, 469. Schofield, 146 
Schovil, 144,146, 162, 190. 
Scott, 1 17, 478. 

Scoville, 220, 317, 395, 399, 406. 
Si'rini'.'coiir, 313. Seaman, 404. 
Sedgwick, 10. 3*. 51, 71, 161, 

190, 204-206.' 
SeMen, 72. 411. Senior, 328. 
Sexl in. 2*7. 
Seymour, 11,12,15-17, 55,150, 

214, 22B, 230", B94, B74, 108 

176, 177 •"■ "• 

Shattuck, 115, 278, 285, 308, 

. i ill. 
Shaw, 297, 298. 
Sheffield. 307. 
Sheldon, 145, 240, 297, 327,328, 

330,3 ' 002, 400, 

Oil 
Shelley, 47'!. Shelton, 373 
Shepard, 16, 161, 168, 265, 206, 

268, 270, 304, 829, 870 378, 

388,401. 518, 516. 

Sheridan. 473. 
SO, rid, n, 411 
Sherman, 57,58, 1.31, 162, 167, 

S 139. Shortman, 271. 

Showers, 187. 
Sillimarj 

Simons, 175, 354 
Simonson, 27:'. 134 

r, L6, 68, 156, 185. S40, 

365,893,394, P7, 427,464, 

168 175-477, 188. 

Slack, 474, PI. 

Slot urn, 216. 

Small,'. . 

Smith, 16, 22, 11. 53, 60, 67, 76, 

11, 109, 126, 185 Ml, 

147-16 167, 169, 

101. L62, 1 ,1. 105. 172, L76, 

:. 192. 217. 220 281, 

15, 2P.2I0, ■ 

2 I i 268, 271. 273, 2 
2-.:. 286, 2-;. 292, 298, 296 
298 301, 305,306,818,818, 
323. 824, 82 i, 38i ! 

865, 374, 

127. II ' 151, 165. 468,476, 

177. ; 

Sue. 11.-'. 601. Snediker, 465. 
Soper, 41. 15, 69, 273. 802, 314, 
.*l, 413, 425, 515,517. 
522 



INDEX OF NAMES 



031 



Spaulding, 176, 246. 
Spencer, 16. 53, 60, 65, 68, 69, | 
73, 74, 93-96, 135, 143rl45. 
152, 154, 159, 160. 164, 165, 
177,179, 190-192, 226,239, 
284, 285, 288, 299, 305, 311, 
322, 341, 377, 380, 394, 397, 
415, 416, 439, 440, 451, 509, 
513. 
Sperrv,433. Spicer, 225. 
Spring, 304. 
Squire, 374, 509. 
Stabell, 144, 252, 270, 301, 321, 

391, 476. 
Stack, 175. 
StanclifT, 154, 160. 
Stanelift, 61, 159. 160, 287, 288. 
Standley, 9. 

Stanley', 50, 187,221,370. 
Staunard, 60, 73, 74, 82, 85, 125, 

135, 159, 161-163, 165, 192. 

228, 329. 
Stanton, 236, 278, 328. 
Staples, 341. 
Starks, 54, 67, 205, 206, 216, 

228, 234, 476, 478, 481. 
Starkweather, 67, 204-206, 237, 

241, 249, 307. 
Starr, 88, 89, 185. 
Stearns, 290. Steele, 282. 
Steese, 391. Stetson, 393. 
Steuben, 176. 
Stevens, 73, 110. 
Stevenson, 130, 133, 165. 
Stewart, 465. Stickney, 517. 
Stillman, 291. 
Stone, 171, 234, 322. 
Stoneman, 104. 

St,.. , 115, 240, iOO. 

Stow, 150. 

Stowe, 291. Strickland, 375. 

Strong, 10S, 124, 176, 205, 214, 

241, 283, 29S, 396, 403, 463, 

489, 515, 522. 
Stuart, 374. 
Sumner, 396, 461. 
Swain, 234. 
Sweet, 54, 59, 72. 74. 94, 108, 

123, 130, '133, 135, 160-162. 

165, 168, 172, 207, 226, 231, 

234, 239, 274, 281, 288, 289, 

329, 333, 317, 380,388, 401, 

417, 465. 
Swift, ix, 47, 50, 162, 220, 246, 

259, 3 '3, 320. 

Talcott, 9, 12. 17, 56, 424, 425. 

Tallmadge, 317, 395. 

Tayler, 16. 

Taylor, 105, 136, 167, 192,201, 

211. 259, 33:), 348,409, 427- 

429, 434, 469, 518, 519. 
Teeter, 476, 477, 481. 
Tencellent, 470. Terrill, 478. 
Terry, 470, 471, 521. Tew, 215. 
Thayet 62, 41°,, 426, 430, 499, 

508. 
Thompson, 33, 69, 96, 150, 153, 

159. 169, 181,182,229,289, 

314, 318, 416, 458, 511, 520. 
Thorburu, 411. 
Thome, 469, 481. 
Thornton, 515. 
Thorp, 35, 215, 463. 
Thrall, 52, 93, 101, 102, 136, 

155, 197, 198, 217. 
Tibballs, 64, 05, 105, 203, 225. 
Tiler, 173. Timpson,327. 
Todd, 118, 289, 445. 
Tolles, 207, 324. 
Towne, 246. Tracy, 152. 
Trafford, 187. 
Treat, 228, 268, 287, 305, 306, 

369, 428. 



Trenck,501. 

Trowbridge, 204. Trull, 203. 
Trumbull. 11,13,143, 501. 
Tucker, 16, 62, 06, 82, 85, 135, 

143, 159. 165, 201, 232, 240. 
Tuller, 150, 151, 156, 171. 253. 
Turner, 144, ISO, 265, 293, 478. 
Turrell, 406, 426. 
Tuttle, 55, 72, 240, 275, 277, 300, 

301. 303,332, 389,390,414, 

474,477,481. 
Twiss, 474, 475, 481. 
Tyler, 33, 164, 432, 467, 468, 522. 

Utley, 211. 

Vaill, 331. 

Van Buren, 461, 462. 

Van Deusen, 476. 

Van Kleek, 313. 

Van Oustrom, 465. 

Vaughn, 474. Veber, 465. 

Videto, 109, 113,114, 135, 139, 

159,175,231. 
Vogel, 463. Voorhies, 51. 
Vore, 302. Vrooman, 65. 

Wade, 59, 73, 102, 109, 115,116, 
126, 135, 154, 157, 159, 165, 
171, 177, 180, 207, 218, 226, 
228,231,245,259, 337,513. 

Wadsworth, 15, 16, 107, 125, 
299,309,388,465, 478. 

Wakefield, 227, 325, 367, 409, 
410, 415, 419, 439, 440, 445, 
469, 512. 

Walker, 357, 453, 465. 

Walter, 107, 136, 148, 150-102, 
165, 275, 276, 281, 288, 285, 
300, 327, 346, 380, 386, 517. 

Ward, 53, 1UU, 1.30, 103, 154, 157, 
159, 204, 2U5, 320, 321, 
411. 

Warner, 228, 403, 463, 476. 

Warren, 228, 463. 

Washington, 143, 428, 431, 501. 
man, 306. 

Watson, Hi, 275, 368, 399, IJ.iT, 
398,465, 178,479,481. 

Watr!^, 329. Waugh, 313. 

Weaver, 272, 328, 518. 

Webb, 64. 

Webster. 10, 139, 407. 

Wedge, 187. 

Weed, 281, 338, 342, 351, 378, 

435, 454, 500. 
Weirs, 420. Weiss, 469. 
Welch, 231, 321, 338, 342, 402, 

llo, 131, 151, 105,473,481, 

489. 

Weld, 102. Welle,, 413. 

Wells, 15, 16,28, 117, 194, 107, 
207,211, 305. 

Wentworth, 338,412,434. 

Wenzell, 176, 477. 

Wesley, 502. 

West, 151, 157, 159, 160, 162, 
289,297,318, 325, 330, 378, 
385 

Westcott, 289. 

Wcstlake,99, L38, 226, 240,275, 
278,319,327, 328, 380,386, 
401, 107. 

Wetherbj . 153. 

Wetmore, x, 28,41.45, 47, 53, 57, 
60 70, 76.83,85,88, 89,94, 
98, 111, 112, ll.i, 121, 120, 
127, I2.i, 13), 13",, L39, 111, 
143, 147 151, 159. lot, 171, 
ISO, 187, 194, 291, 203-205, 
210, 212. 224, 220, 228, 230, 
258,272,325, 320, 378,389, 
431,445, 454,479,489,500, 
521. 



Whaples, 16. 

Wheadon. 110, 136, 194, 195, 
211,213, 236. 

Wheeler, 45, loo, ir,2, 192, 207, 
200,272, 287, 20 1 296, 298, 
200, 304, 319, 322, 320,351, 
358, 070, 378, 379, 386,399, 
408, 412, 165, 169, ITS, 470, 

481. 

Wheelock, 138, 101. 10s, 478, 
519. 

Whiffler, 172. 

White, 105, 110, 154, 157, 159, 
175, 232, 236, 241, 326, 328, 
331, 332, 339, 340, 385, 394, 
476,478, 518. 

Whitford, 281, 306, 347. 

Whitehead, 405, 469, 476, 477. 

Whiting, 15, 00, 71, 112, 114, 
131,137,13s, 159, 171, 175 
211,241, 246,255, 258,268 
270, 284, 2- ;, 287. 309, 319, 
327, 331,38o, 383; 884, 400 
404, 409, 41o. 415, 429, 134, 
451. 507, 515. 516, 518, :,lo. 

Whitman, 50 Whitmore, 190. 

Whitney, 28. 

Whittlesey, 311 Wicker, 424. 

Wilbraham, 399. 

Wilbur, 465. 

Wilcox, 72, 137, 184, 216, 226, 
236,329, 377,451,514. 

Wilcoxsoii, ,-,7, 105, 108, 123, 
125, 135, 141, 143, 144, 159, 
162, 164,215,218. 

Wilder, 139, 410, 414, 427, 434. 

Wilkes, 234. 

Wilkinson, 05, 66, 77, 83, 85, 
87, 123, 135, 159, 101, 162, 
165, 168,175,201,211. 

Willard, 291, 340. 

William and Mary, 10. 

Williams, 15. 16, 55, 115, 116, 
lis, 28.1, 205, 2:10, 2.O. 331 
395, 399,407,414, 419, 440 
403. 

Wilmot., 27o. 

Wilson, 29, 44, 53, 220, 228, 231 
265,266,272,287, 802,317- 
319,323,337, 412, 413,415. 
416, 422, 449, 515. 

Witherspoon, 50 1 . 

Wood, 155, 311, 328, 384, 411, 
426, 476. 

Wolcott, 153, 209, 327, 332. 

Woodall, 385, 457, 521. 

Woodford, 23, 53-55, 70, 174, 
286, 2.88, 379, 388-391, 401, 
410,414, 4lo, 423,425,426, 
476-478, 481, 4,8,8, 494, 500, 
521. 

Woodruff, 52, 105, I07, 130,133, 
135, HI, lb',, 150, 159, 161, 
202. 270, 272, 205,299, 319, 
300,370. 378,885, K 
420, 126, 405, 476, 489, 607, 
,13, 514,521. 

Woods, 111, 203. 

Woodward, 68, 327. 

U Iworth, 215, 208, 274, 350, 

0,1 354,476. 

Wooster, L62 3,7, 315. 

Worthington, 332 

Wright, 29. 63, 85, 97, 110, 135, 
loo, : 17, L60 lo.i, 
175,202,207, 226, 200 205, 
281,288,292, 3.12, 318, 320, 
880,834,846, 317. S 
380,380 111. 178, 479,481. 

Wyllys,25, 200, 288. 

Yale, 29. 410. 
York, 489. 

Youul', !••-, loo, 



ERRORS AND CORRECTIONS. 



The Compiler, being disqualified by inexperience aud defective eyesight for proof-reading, 
assigned that special duty to other hands, and only read over the proof-sheets, without comparing 
them with the copy. A subsequent revision has revealed a list of errors which is here given with their 
corrections. 



Page 12, Liue 3, for 1773 read 1723. 



21, 

" 34, ' 

" 37, 

" 41, 

" 41, 

" 45, 

" 46, 

" 46, 

" 50, 

" 61, 

" 54, 
" 56, 
" 67, 
" 75 j 
" 86, 
" 86, 
" 89, 
" 91, 
" 97, 
" 100, 
" 102. 
" 111, 
" 114, 
" 116, 
" 116, 
" 119, 
" 125, 
" 125, 
" 130, 

" 138, 

" 138, 

" 138, 

" 141, 

" 142, 

" 173, 

" 196, 
" 195, 

•" 200, 
" 205, 

" 209, 

" 224, 
" 226, 

" 266, 
" 267, 

" 268, 
" 271, 
" 271, 

" 287 



15, " quantity " quality. 

3, " long " large. 
39, " Concator " Ooncolor. 
33, " 1653 " 1753. 

21, " Coventry " Country. 

38, " 1754 " 1764. 

16, " 1788 " 1782. 

6, " Chauiery, " Chauncey. 

22, " Jan. '• .lime. 

17, " Henry " Harvey. 

39, after 17S4, insert Mary Led- 
yard. 

16, for 183* read 1882. 
11, " Ason, " A son. 
30, " terms, read tours. 
15, " lTr.7 " 1767. 
19, " and " out. 

22, strike out wh. 
37, for, these nail their. 
2. '• so " to. 

8, insert comma after Sarah. 
43, for VI read IV. 

2, " May 20 read May 23. 

37, " 1851 " 1852. 

15, " N. .1. " Conn. 
24, " Booth, " liooge. 
29, strike out July 15,1811. 

4, add Coe (7) after Alanson. 

3, strike out \V. after Zerviah. 
14, for Sept. 22 read Sept. 13. 

28, " abjurgatious read objurga- 
tions. 

4, for 1785 read 1786. 
7, " 1796 " 1794. 

16, " Loritta, read Lorilla. 

38, '■' by •' to. 

4, before forbearance insert 
proper. 

ert after and, "Reuben, 
who." 

9, for John Joes r< "d John Ives. 



Page 290, line 

" 291, " 

" 292, " 

" 294, " 

" 298, " 

" 302, " 

" 302, " 

" 3C3, " 

" 303, " 

" 305, " 

" 305, 

" 313, 

" 313, 



22, for Nov. 12, read Nov. 22. 
6, for (daughter of ? | read He was. 



1", 
29, 



L6 i; 



Laurence " Luman. 
June " January. 

1797 " 1799. 

for New Pultz, rral New 
Paltz. 

j u ihnington. 
i .n paragraphs, 
10, for Levi read Zerl. 
;::;. " < ',< e ■■ Case, 
23 " pounds read dollars. 
19, " 1805 ' 

March It'.. ;. ad March 10. 



19, " I " 1864. 

13, " Hneknot " Pine knoll. 

> exandcr " John. 

tor '' grantee. 

" 1774. 

-i'ivrn. 

33, ' Kyler " 1\\ la. 

2, " •■ March. 

1. " plot. 

6, " June 13, 1838, fad Jan- 
uai 

1 66. 

Page 288, Hue 35, 1" ' Butrick. 



314, 
314, 
322, 
323, 
324, 



325, 

3Z9, 

332, 
333, 
335, 



343, 
345, 
351, 
363, 
367, 
368, 
368, 
368, 



403, 
414, 

419, 

422, 
423, 

423, 



33, " Sept 11, read Sept 18. 
17, " 1827 " 1847. 

5, " Nishus " Nisus. 

7, " 17*1 " 1791. 

24, " Sarah Vare r ead Sarah Vore. 
21, " 73 '• 78. 

83, 84, for January " .lune. 

5, for Treal " Treat. 

23, " statute " statue. 

23, " Wargh " Waugh. 

37, " Schrimgeozir read Scrim- 

geour. 
11, " Monsell read Monell. 
27, after Kuhert, insert " And.*' 
11. for Brown read Brewer. 
20, for Higby r,ad Higley. 
31, insert b. May 16, 1880, and for 
m. Dec. 16, 1830, read Dec. 13, 
18dG. 
10, for Hulsey read Halsej . 



12 
33, " 

1, " 
29, " 

13, " 

14, " 
1, " 
1, " 

8, " 
37, " 

28, " 
42, " 



33 

17, 
12. 

35, 
1, 
3, 

9, 



1797 
" shop. 

•' 1S17. 

1857 read May 4, 



424, 


' 6, 


428, 


1-. 


184, 


' 29, 


137, 


■ 28, 


444, 


■ 11. 


453, 


• 26, 


162, 


■ B 


462, 


• 17, 


463, 


- 27, 


471, 


' 23, 



471, 



500, 
500 

520. 



1796 

hop 

1827, 

May 4, 
1837. 

April read August. 

Bird " Baird. 

Lyman " human. 

Anstus " Austin's. 

a nuisance read miasma. 

Jan. S, " .Ian. 18. 

entirely " intently. 

1856 " I- 

43, strike out by second wife. 
19, for satumian read saturnine. 
in. " Sept. 11, " Sept. 1. 

b. Aug. 2, 1859, read b. Aug. 
•J. 1*58. 

I'.unn read Bunce. 

Sept. 10, 1840, read June 
2::. 1S57. 

Hulsey read Halsey. 

Will " XXVIII. 

He.-. 25, 1S65 r.wl April 2, 
1856. 

Erase " lb- lied June 16, 

1849 r,nd 1M7. 
1830 ■ 1 
Stoves ,; Sfc 
1854 " 1864. 
Henrioken, <<<"/ Hendricken. 

•■ Cooley. 
April I. '• \]'i'il 13. 
;..|, " 14th. 
Daj " Dayton. 
Feb. '-'1, 1S64, read Feb. 20, 

i„.,.. 22, 1864, " Dec. 22, 



84, •' : 

27. 82, for Orion 
" I .,iwi 
12, for fsaac 

i ■ 



1871. 
i nion. 
Orion. 
David. 

1868. 



